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LIFE OF 

GHAELES SUMNEE 



BY 



WALTER G. SHOTWELL 

10' 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPi^NY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1910, 
By WALTER G. SHOT WELL. 



Published October, 1910. 



©r.i A:^7;i820 



PREFACE 

I SUPPOSE it will be conceded that the most interesting period 
of the history of the United States is that leading up to, covered 
by, and following the Civil War. The nation " conceived in lib- 
erty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal," in its brief existence of fourscore years had made an un- 
exampled growth in population and material prosperity. It had 
gathered about it the pride and the hopes of millions of patri- 
otic people. The questions for solution were whether the na- 
tion could continue to exist and whether the fundamental 
principle of its organization could be maintained. These were 
great questions. 

In the discussion of them it was natural that great interest 
should be shown and that as the contest warmed great passions 
should be enlisted. The battles of the period were all fought 
in Congress and on the stump before they were transferred to 
the tield. They developed a race of orators and statesmen, 
commencing with Webster, Calhoun and Clay and ending with 
Lincoln, Sumner and Douglas, that has never been equalled. 
I purpose to write the life of one of these men. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I PAGE 
Birth — Ancestry — Father and Mother 1 

CHAPTER n 

Youth of Sumner— Early School Days — Father made Sheriff 7 

CHAPTER in 

Enters Harvard College — Dislike for Mathematics — Deportment — 
Popularity — Friends — Excursion to Lake Champlain— Societies — 
Class Standing 11 

CHAPTER IV 

Undecided as to Profession — Prize Essay — Work of Year after Gradua- 
tion—Enters Harvard Law School — Industry — Friendship of 
Professors 18 

CHAPTER V 

Law Practice— Editing "The Jurist" — Other Publications — Instruc- 
tor in Law School — "The Five of Clubs" 27 

CHAPTER yi 

Trip to Europe— Opposition of Friends— Motives for taking it— Voy- 
age— France— Learning French— Schools— Courts— Assemblies. . 33 

CHAPTER Vn 

London— The Clubs— Parliament— The Courts— The Judges— Society 
— Macaulay, Carlyle, Hallara — Services for Friends— Circuits — 
London again 46 

CHAPTER VIII 

Parisagain- Employment— North East Boundary— Journey to Rome 
— Father's Death — Studies — Greene — Crawford — Florence — 

Venice 80 

V 



yi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX PAGE 

Through Austria— Vienna— Metternich— Berlin— Saviguy— Heidel- 
berg, Mittermaier—Thibaut— London again — Home— Retrospect 
of Trip.. 90 

CHAPTER X 

Friends— Campaign of 1840— Resumes "Work — Office of Hillard & 
Sumner— Phillips Match Case— Right of Search— Practice- 
Unprofessional Studies Q"? 

CHAPTER XI 

In Society— Friends— The Misses Ward— Howe— Howe's Marriage- 
Longfellow, Prescott, Bancroft, Story, Allston, Channiug, Adams 
—Their Influence— His Habits 108 

CHAPTER XII 

International Questions -" The Caroline"-" Tlie Creole "—Slavery 
— "Somers" Mutiny— Law School— Edits Vesey Jr.— Sickness 
—Sister Mary's Death— At Work again 123 

CHAPTER XIII 

Chosen Orator for July 4, 1845— The Occasion— The Oration on "The 
True Grandeur of Nations "—The Dinner— Estimates of Oration 
—Judge Story's Death— Sumner's Tribute 140 

CHAPTER XIV 

Judge Story's Professorship not Sought— First Speech against Slavery 
—A Lyceum Lecturer— Article on Pickering— The Beta Kappa 
Oration— Place as an Orator 157 

CHAPTER XV 

Cause of Universal Peace— Prison Discipline— Boston Prison Dis- 
cipline Society— Equal Rights of Colored Children in Schools- 
Diversions 

CHAPTER XVI 

Admission of Texas— Mexican War— Opposition— Nominated for Con- 
gress — Declines— Whig Conventions— Dissatisfaction with Old 
Parties— Anti -Slavery Party— Sumner a Speaker— Again declines 
Nomination for Congress— Chairman of State Committee of Free 
Soil Party 180 



169 



CONTENTS Vii 

CHAPTER XVII PAGE 

Loss of Friends — EfEect on Sumner — New Friendships 203 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Compromise of 1850— Webster's Seventh of jVIarch Speech — The Co- 
alif.ou of Free-Soilers and Democrats — Sumner a Candidate for 
Senator — Elected — Acceptance 316 

CHAPTER XIX 

Leaving Boston— First Days in Washington- Welcome to Kossuth— 
Aid to Railroads— Anxiety to speak on Slavery— Secures Hearing 
—The Speech— George returns from Europe— Vacation 237 

CHAPTER XX 

Session 1852-3— Member of Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 
— Campaign of 1853— Coalition defeated — Nebraska Debate — 
Joins Republican Party— Lectures on Granville Sharp 270 

CHAPTER XXI 

Session of 1854-5— Toucey Bill— Lectures before Anti-Slavery As- 
sociations—Visits South and West — Passmore Williamson- 
Election of 1855 296 

CHAPTER XXII 

Stormy Session of 1855-6 — Banks, Republican, made Speaker— Kansas 
Troubles— Applies for Admission— Sumner's Speech— The 
Replies — Sumner's Rejoinder 306 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Assault upon Sumner by Brooks— Action of Congress— Resignation- 
Re-election of Brooks— South approves Assault- North aroused 
—Later careers of Brooks, Keitt and Butler 329 

CHAPTER XXIV 

Nature of Sumner's Injuries— Goes to Silver Springs, to Philadelphia, 
to Cresson Springs- Public Interest in Sumner— Public Reception 
at Boston— Re-elected— To Europe in search of Health— Paris- 
France— England— Travels and Friends— Home again— In Wash- 
ington—Unable for Duty— To Europe again— Medical Treat- 
ment 343 

CHAPTER XXV 
Home again— Friends— In Senate— Speech on "Barbarism of 
Slavery "—Campaign of 1860 384 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXVI page 
No Compromise — Secession — Baltimore Mobs— Emancipation 403 

CHAPTER XXVn 

"Trent" Affair — Sumner urges Release of Mason and Slidell — His 
Speech — Appearance and Position — Emancipation again Advo- 
cated—Other Questions 425 

CHAPTER XXVni 

Campaign of 1863— Third Election to Senate— Session of 1862-3 — 
Advocates Enlistment of Colored Troops— Compensated Eman- 
cipation 446 

CHAPTER XXIX 

Dangers from England and France — Sumner's work in preserving 
Peace — Correspondence— Speech on Foreign Relations — Article 
on Franklin and Slidell 458 

CHAPTER XXX 

Emancipation — Passage of XlVth Amendment — Equal Rights — 
Repeal of Fugitive Slave Law — Sumner's Persistency — Other 
Measures 473 

CHAPTER XXXI 

Reconstruction under Lincoln — No Bust for Chief Justice Taney — 
Negro Suffrage — Freedmen's Bureau — Retaliation — Relations to 
President Lincoln— Lincoln's Death 492 

CHAPTER XXXII 

Reconstruction under Johnson— His Character — Sumner for Equal 
Rights — XlVth Amendment — Sumner and President Johnson — 
Eulogies on Colleagues 524 

CHAPTER XXXIII 
Death of Sumner's Mother — Her Character— His Marriage 555 

CHAPTER XXXIV 

Lecture "One Man Power against Congress" — Johnson against 
XIV th Amendment— Election of 1866— Tenure of Office Bill- 
Reconstruction — Purchase of Alaska 559 



CONTENTS ■• ix 

CHAPTER XXXV page 

"Prophetic Voices coucerning America "—Lecture, "The Nation"— 
Leaving Old Home in Boston— Divorce— New Home in Wash- 
ington—Habits—Visitors 584 

CHAPTER XXXVI 
Impeachment of President Johnson— Sumner's Opinions 592 

CHAPTER XXXVII 

New Political Issues— Campaign of 1868— Grant Elected— Sumner 
Re-elected Senator— A. T. Stewart for Secretary of Treasury- 
Fish, Secretary of State— Motley 605 

CHAPTER XXXVIII 

Eulogies on Thaddeus Stevens and Wm. P. Fessenden— Undertakes 
Edition of his Works— Changes in Naturalization Laws— Equal 
Rights — Reconstruction Completed 617 

CHAPTER XXXIX 

Financial Measures— One Cent Postage— Chinese Indemnity Fund- 
Claims against England— In Harmony with Grant's Administra- 
tion 629 

CHAPTER XL 

Continued Interest in Republican Party- Grant's Scheme to Annex 
San Domingo — Sumner's Opposition — Sickness— Removal from 
his Committee — Defeats Annexation 648 

CHAPTER XLI 

Gratitude of Haiti— The Civil Rights' Bill— Sale of Arms to France- 
Liberal Republican Movement — Speech against Grant— Opposes 
his Re-election 674 

CHAPTER XLII 
Last Trip to Europe— The Battle Flag Bill— Resolution of Censure- 
Sickness 694 

CHAPTER XLIII 

Returns to Work— Last Summer at Boston— In Senate Again— 
Attends Dinner of New England Society of New York— Last 

Days— Death— Eulogies 705 

Index 725 



PORTRAITS 

Charles Sumner in 1856, at the Height of his 
Earlier Career. From the Painting by 
Wight. Frontispiece 

Charles Sumner in 1873. From a Photograph 

BY Allen. To face page 694 



LIFE OF CHAELES SUMNER 



CHAPTER I 

BIRTH ANCESTRY — FATHER MOTHER 

Charles Sumner was born in the city of Boston, January 
sixth, 1811, the child of Charles Pinckney, and Relief Jacobs, 
Sumner. It was a twin birth, the other child being Matilda. 
The house in which they were born is no longer standing. It 
was in May, now Revere Street and occupied a part of the 
present site of the Bowdoin School, This continued to be the 
home of the family until 1825 or 1826 when they removed to 
what was then No. 53 Hancock Street, later No. 33. These 
houses Mr. Sumner did not own, but in 1830 he purchased No, 
20 Hancock Street and this continued to be the home of the 
family until 1867. There were born to the same parents, after 
the two that have been mentioned, seven children, Albert, 
Henry, George, Jane, Mary, Horace and Julia, the last being 
the only one to survive her brother Charles. 

The Sumner family were from Oxford County, England, 
where their ancestor, William, who first came to America was 
born in 1604 near Bicester. He settled at Dorchester, Mass., in 
1635. From him Charles Sumner was descended in the seventh 
generation, the intervening ancestors in the direct line of de- 
scent being Roger, William, Seth, Job and Charles Pinckney, 
Physically the Sumners were large, broad-shouldered, deep- 
chested men, noted for their fine personal appearance as well 
as for strength, activity and power of endurance. Gener- 
ally they were farmers and landowners. Increase Sumner 
was a member of the family. He was honored by the State of 
Massachusetts with a seat on her Supreme Bench and the office 
of Governor, His predecessors in the latter office, Adams and 
Hancock, had been crippled with age and the gout, but as 
Sumner in 1797 passed from the Old South Church, after the 
election sermon, his form caught the eye of an old apple woman 
who with honest admiration exclaimed : " Thank God, we have 
at last got a Governor that can walk " ! Major-General Edwin 
1 



■g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Y. Sumner, who served with distinction in the Mexican and 
Civil Wars, was the grandson of Seth Sumner. The family has 
shown a taste for intellectual pursuits. From 1723 a long line 
of them appears enrolled among the students of Harvard. 

Job, the grandfather of Charles, was there pursuing his stud- 
ies at the commencement of the Revolution but the news of Lex- 
ington appealed so strongly to the boy, that he enlisted in the 
army, where he continued until the close of the war, attaining 
the rank of Major. He served at Bunker Hill, at the siege of 
Boston, on Lake Champlain, at West Point and New York. At 
West Point he commanded the guard over Major Andre a part 
of the time he was under sentence of death. He never re- 
turned to College, but in consideration of his part in the war, 
he was, two years after its close, voted by the authorities of 
the College the degree of Master of Arts, which entitled him to 
registration among the alumni. In 1785 he was appointed by 
Congress a commissioner to adjust the accounts between the Con- 
federation and the State of Georgia, in which capacity he served 
until his death in 1789. He was voted for as Governor of 
Georgia by the Legislature of that State, but failed of an elec- 
tion by a few votes. He was stricken with a fever in the South 
and having partially recovered started for home, but suffered 
a relapse complicated with other disorders and died, on the way, 
in ISTew York City, at the age of thirty-five. He was buried in 
St. Paul's Churchyard on Broadway. He was borne to his 
grave by eight ofFicers of the Revolutionary War, attended by a 
regiment of artillery. His funeral was attended by the Vice- 
President, Secretary of War and the Senators and Representa- 
tives in Congress of Massachusetts, New York being then the 
seat of government. He was five feet, ten inches tall, stoutly 
built, quick in action, a frank, generous, soldierly man, fond of 
society and his friends, faithful to his trusts, a friend of edu- 
cation and a lover of good books. He left an estate in land 
and government securities valued at about twelve thousand 
dollars. 

At the time of his death his son, Charles Pinckney Sumner, 
the father of Charles Sumner, was a student at Phillips Acad- 
emy at Andover, Mass., Dr. Seth Sumner, the brother of Major 
Sumner, became his guardian. Several letters from the father, 
still preserved, show his solicitude for the education and right 
training of the boy, from whom according to the means of 
travel of tliat day he was so widely separated. This education 
■under the care of his uncle went on without interruption after 
his father's death. Charles Pinckney remained at Phillips 
Academy until 1792 when he entered Harvard College where 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 3 

he graduated in 1796. He was a classmate of John Pickering, 
the author of Pickering's Greek Lexicon — the same John Pick- 
ering who was commemorated by Charles Sumner in a bio- 
graphical sketch published in the Law Reporter of June, 1846, 
and in his oration on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist and 
the Philanthropist," delivered at Harvard College in August 
of the same year. A friendship also sprang up between Charles 
Pinckney Sumner and Joseph Story during their college days, 
though the latter was two years behind him in the course. It 
continued unbroken until the death of Mr. Sumner. 

The year after Charles Pinckney Sumner's graduation he 
spent in teaching and the next in a visit to the West Indies. 
He then commenced the study of law and was admitted to the 
bar in 1801. He commenced the practice of his profession in 
Boston. Though well read and an industrious man he did not 
succeed. His business was confined to the collection of small 
bills and office work and it was only with the closest economy 
that it yielded his family a subsistence. He had no influential 
antecedents to open a place for him and was perhaps wanting 
in that vigor and versatility of intellect which fits men for the 
more lucrative kinds of practice. 

His want of success led him to seek other employment. He 
was twice chosen Clerk of the House of Representatives of 
Massachusetts, first for 1806-7 and again for 1810-11. During 
the last term his friend Joseph Story was Speaker of the House 
and resigned to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. He left the bar in 1819 to accept the place of 
Deputy Sheriff of Suffolk County, which paid him less than a 
thousand dollars a year and he retained this offlce until 1825 
when Governor Lincoln appointed him Sheriff. His income 
from this office was from two to three thousand dollars a year 
and he held it by successive appointments for thirteen years 
and seven months and until within a few days of his death. 
He was by this means enabled to maintain his family in greater 
comfort and at last to leave an estate worth fifty thousand 
dollars. 

He was the friend of temperance and the public schools. He 
was an ardent opponent of Masonry and having when a young 
man belonged to the order and become a master-mason he in- 
curred much ill-will among its members by an exposure of the 
secrets which he had thus learned. While Sheriff he witnessed 
the pro-slavery riots of Boston. It was during this time that 
a woman's anti-slavery meeting was entered and dispersed by a 
mob of men, while its president was leading it in prayer. Dur- 
ing the same time William Lloyd Garrison was seized and after 



4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

his clothes had been torn from his body and his hat was cut 
in pieces he was dragged through the streets of Boston with a 
rope about his neck until he was rescued by his friends and 
hurried to the Leverett Street Jail to save him from further 
violence. Charles Pinckney Sumner, witnessing such outrages, 
became a strong anti-slavery man. In his school days he had 
shown opposition to both slavery and war. At a college exhibi- 
tion in 1795 he read an original poem wherein he expressed 
the wish that both should cease. He retained his views on 
these subjects through life and taught them to his children. He 
did not, however, unite with the Abolition movement. After 
his appointment to the office of Sheriff in 1825 he studiously 
held aloof from political discussions, considering them incom- 
patible with the duties of his position. But his known sym- 
pathy with the anti-slavery movement caused some of the 
opposition to his last appointment. 

To the duties of his office he devoted himself with scrupulous 
exactness. He made a study of the law on the subject in Eng- 
land and America and published an article in the Jurist 
pointing out some differences. At one time when he learned 
that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was about to an- 
nounce a decision, casting what he considered an undue re- 
sponsibility upon Sheriffs in making a levy, hoping before its 
publication to change the view of the Court he addressed to the 
Judges a voluminous written argument against it, but with- 
out effect. He was the last Sheriff of Suffolk County to wear 
the antique dress, like that worn by this officer in England. 
It is said to have comported well with his dignified bearing. 

He was of medium lieight, erect and being slender he ap- 
peared taller than he was in reality. He was not a handsome 
man, but was neat in his dress and in the care of his person. 
He was scholarly in his tastes and an extensive reader of good 
books. History was his favorite pastime and he read it care- 
fully with the aid of maps and charts. He was himself an oc- 
casional writer of both prose and verse. He loved knowledge 
and enjoyed cultivated society. He counted among his friends 
many of the best people of Boston. He was a model of courtly 
dignity, scrupulously polite, bowing low, touching his hand to 
his hat and waving it back to his side. He was rigidly con- 
scientious and fearless in the discharge of duty. To the 
appeals of a culprit kinsman who once sought his kindly inter- 
ference he sternly answered, " The law must take its course." 
On another occasion, as Sheriff, he read the riot act to a mob, 
amid a shower of bricks. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 5 

When his opinions were once formed they were seldom 
changed, regardless of what others might wish he would do 
what he thought was right. He was faithful in his friendships 
and remembered a kindness with gratitude. But in his last 
years he became rigid and cheerless, seldom smiling or entering 
into the mirth of others and little disposed to form new as- 
sociates or to adopt new ways or to be influenced by thoughts 
of the convenience of others. As a father he felt a deep inter- 
est in the welfare of his children. He had received a good 
education himself and he wished to give one to them. He per- 
sonally superintended their instruction and sought to infuse 
them with a love for knowledge. But his sombre disposition 
little accorded with the cheerful moods of children; he was 
exacting and required prompt obedience in tasks that he as- 
signed them, so that while courting their company his course 
commanded respect for him rather than love and familiarity, 

Charles Pinckney Sumner was married in 1810 to Relief 
Jacobs. She was born in 1785 and was descended in the sev- 
enth generation from Nicholas Jacobs, a native of England, 
who settled in Massachusetts in 1633. On her mother's side 
she traced her lineage to William Hersey who came from Eng- 
land to Massachusetts in 1635, On the same side she was also 
descended from Governor William Bradford. Her father, David 
Jacobs, Jr., died in 1799, when she was only fourteen years 
of age. He was a farmer and belonged to a family of farmers, 
mostly living in Plymouth county, Massachusetts. Relief Ja- 
cobs was in Boston earning a livelihood by sewing, when she first 
became acquainted with Charles Pinckney Sumner. They were 
fellow boarders at the house of Adams Bailey. They were 
married in their own home, the house in May Street which 
they had previously rented and furnished and in which eight 
of their children were afterwards born. 

In person Mrs. Sumner was large, though not fleshy. She 
had a fine constitution and throughout her long life enjoyed ex- 
cellent health. She was abundantly educated in those arts 
which contribute to the comfort and happiness of a home. The 
time in which she lived and the circumstances of her childhood 
had in this respect contributed to the natural bent of her 
character. During the first fifteen years of her married life, 
though her husband's income was small and their family large, 
her prudence and economy enabled them to live comfortably 
without becoming involved in debt. She never received any 
other education than that of the common school but her native 
good sense insured her respect in anv society. Her excellent 
judgment, appreciative disposition and cheerfulness of temper 
always recommended her. 



6 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

She was a kind-hearted motherly woman devoted to Her 
children, sympathizing with their trials, but anxious to rear 
them to habits of integrity and usefulness. She wished them to 
excel but taught them that success was to be expected from toil 
and not genius and that no good thing would be withheld from 
them that walk uprightly. She appreciated the responsibilities 
of life, was conscientious in the discharge of her duties, a con- 
sistent Christian, supporting sorrow with calmness and success 
with sobriety. Her neighbors spoke of her as " an excellent, 
kind person " ; and her pastor in her last years said : " Mrs. 
Sumner was a woman of retiring simplicity of life, but of 
strong and heroic traits of character and those who knew her 
could trace in the Senator's noblest characteristics a direct in- 
heritance from her." 

The best testimonial of her sterling qualities is that of her 
husband, her daily companion for twenty-nine years, who by his 
will, after only equalizing some small advancement to his chil- 
dren, gave her their home for life a^nd all the remainder of his 
large estate absolutely, confiding as he said, " in her disposi- 
tion to carry into effect his wishes and in her affection for 
their children, and that she will from time to time' aiid finally 
by her last will make such disposition of the property given 
her as justice and the condition of the children shall require." 
The sequel showed that his confidence was not misplaced for 
in her hands the estate was doubled in value and then went 
to their surviving children in equal shares. She survived her 
husband twenty-seven years and died at the age of eighty-one. 



CHAPTER II 

THE YOUTH OF SUMNER — EARLY SCHOOL DAYS — EATHER MADE 
SHERIFF 

The childhood and youth of Sumner were passed in Boston 
and its vicinity. It was then a much smaller place than now 
and its population was more democratic, its citizens associat- 
ing upon terms of greater familiarity. Its property was then 
more equally distributed, instances of poverty and of great 
wealth being less common. Its people have always been marked 
for intelligence. Then as now the influence of its excellent 
schools and Harvard College, its favorite seat of learning,_ in 
the adjoining suburb of Cambridge was noticeable. The child- 
ish rambles of Sumner extended about both places. During his 
boyhood he made occasional visits to his mother's relatives at 
South Hingham and to his father's at Dorchester, one we find 
to Nantasket Beach. It is not probable they ever extended 
farther, until, in his nineteenth year, with some college friends, 
he made an excursion on foot to Lake Chamj)lain. 

He was not a playful child, nor was he venturesome or mis- 
chievous, he was rather of a quiet disposition, obedient and 
willing to perform the tasks assigned to him. A childish in- 
cident, however, is related, which shows he was then, as later 
in life, tenacious of his rights. Some larger boys one day 
caught a stick with which he was playing and tried to wrest it 
from him. But the stick was his ; he would not let it be forced 
away. The harder they pulled the more firmly he clung to it, 
until at last one of the boys seizing a stone commenced to 
pound his hands with it to make him let go, but to no avail. 
He would not yield. They hammered harder, but he kept his 
hold, until the blood finally appearing from the wounds on 
his hands, they saw it and ran away frightened, leaving him in 
the possession of his stick. 

The first school he attended was a private one taught by 
Hannah R. Jacobs, his mother's maiden sister, in an upper 
room in his father's house. The school was small and furnished 
only the most elementary instructions. He next entered the 
West Writing Scliool taught for the public by Benjamin Holt 
in a building at the corner of Hawkins and Chardon streets. 
7 



g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Here he remained until ten years of age, receiving instnietion 
in the ordinary branches and manifesting no more than ordi- 
nary capacity. He was at the same time instructed in writing 
by a special master. His father's means being limited, it was 
his intention at this time to give Charles only such an educa- 
tion as would fit him for a place in some store, where he could 
support himself and perhaps render some aid to the family. 
He was not therefore to be taught Greek and Latin. But a 
circumstance occurred which changed his father's intention. 
Charles with a few pennies, which he had earned, purchased 
some elementary Latin books from an older boy and commenced 
to study them. He surprised his father one day by presenting 
himself books in hand before him and requesting him to hear 
his recitation. The father was so touched by the seeming in- 
stinct of the child that he determined to allow him to com- 
mence the study of Latin and Greek. 

In August, 1821, at ten years of age he entered the Boston 
Latin School. This institution has long been held in high es- 
teem by the friends of substantial and accurate scholarship. It 
•was established in colonial days and many eminent men have 
been among its pupils. Its course of study at this time was 
the one usually pursued in preparatory schools, save that it 
was longer, comprehending more than was required for ad- 
mission to Harvard. Its principal instructors were Benjamin 
Gould, its Master, and Ludwick P. Leverett, the teacher of 
Latin. The latter, a very thorough teacher, afterwards became 
the author of Leverett's Latin Lexicon. It was to his well- 
directed efforts that Sumner owed much of his proficiency in 
Latin and Greek. He continued under the instructions of these 
teachers until 1826, the prescribed course of study requiring 
five years. There were in the school at this time, though in 
different classes, two boys with whom he was afterwards to be 
conspicuously associated, — to one as the apologist of slavery 
and to the other as its determined opponent. They were Rob- 
ert C. Winthrop and Wendell Phillips. Sumner's standing in 
his class, though respectable did not indicate any remarkable 
talent. In 1S?3 he received a prize for his good conduct. In 
1824 he took a third prize for Latin translations and in 1826 
he took second prizes for a Latin poem and an English theme. 
At his graduation he received one of the six Franklin medals 
which were presented to his class. 

His superiority appeared more in conversation than in his 
recitations. His taste for reading, which afterwards became 
marked, was acquired at this time. He occupied many of his 
leisure hours in this way. He read with interest books which 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 9 

are thought suitable for adults. And he read them so carefully 
as to be able to discuss their contents with persons older than 
himself in a way which sometimes excited the wonder of his 
playmates. In 1825, at the age of fourteen, he had read enough 
English History to be able to write with accuracy a compend- 
ium of it, eighty pages long, covering the whole period from 
the Conquest by the Romans to 1801. The next year he read 
Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
a copy of which had been given him as one of his prizes at the 
Latin School. He also read a history of Greece. 

One of his playmates at the Latin School relates a story 
which illustrates his proficiency in Geography. This was not 
among the requirements for admission to the Latin School nor 
was it in its prescribed course of study. An ill-natured teacher 
thought to put him down one day for his ignorance of it. 
Sumner boldly declared he would answer any question the 
teacher could ask him. The teacher hunted out what he sup- 
posed to be a very difficult question and put it to him and he 
answered it correctly without a moment's hesitation. 

In personal appearance Sumner was at this time tall and 
slender, awkward in his movements, with a face not handsome. 
His constitution owing to the rapidity of his growth was not 
strong and caused his friends some anxiety. He cared little for 
sports and seldom took part in them. He was retiring in his 
disposition, studious and found diversion chiefly, in books. 
Without much humor he was yet a great talker and his kindly 
disposition made him a favorite with his playmates. He was 
liked by his teachers, submitted cheerfully to their discipline, 
obeying their rules and performing the tasks assigned him 
promptly. He was correct in his deportment, had no bad 
habits, did not swear and discouraged profanity in others. He 
was thoughtful, considerate and conscientious. 

On the sixth day of September, 1825, Governor Levi Lincoln 
appointed his father Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 
This event changed the father's circumstances. He was now 
placed in a position of comparative affluence and the rigid 
economy which had thus far regulated his family was no longer 
imperative. He always remembered the appointment with grat- 
itude and ten years afterward characterized Governor Lincoln 
as his greatest earthly benefactor. The event coming as it did 
at such an opportune time in the life of the son. Just before 
finishing his course at the Latin School, and with the certain 
prospect of the continuance of good fortune for some years to 
come, changed the father's purpose as to the career of his son. 
A month before, we find him. seeking admission for him to a 



IQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

military school at Middletown, Conn., where, by his labor he 
might defray his own expenses. About this time he asked the 
Secretary of War to appoint him to a cadetship in the Military 
Academy at West Point, where his relative, Edwin V. Sumner, 
had graduated. Both were probably suggested by his limited 
means for the views of neither father nor son on the subject of 
war would have induced them to seek a military education for 
him. While the father wished to give all his nine children a 
useful education, before this appointment came to him he 
frankly confessed his means enabled him to think only of use- 
fulness. 

To this appointment and the incident of the Latin books, 
Charles Sumner owed his education and to that education 
the achievements of his life. Without these things, mere ac- 
cidents as they seem, he might have been a clerk or a respectable 
merchant, but the talents which gave him eminence, buried 
in a counting-room would have been lost. It is touching to 
reflect how much in this world depends on little things, Colum- 
bus, heart-sick, burdened with poverty and oppressed with dis- 
appointments, abandoning Spain in despair, when he stopped 
at a convent to beg for bread and, attracting the attention of 
the prior, was enabled to secure the interposition of the Queen 
in fitting out an exj^edition to discover America ; Shakespeare 
apprehended in poaching upon his Lordship's game-preserve, 
and Stratford lost an indifferent wool-comber, but the world 
gained an immortal poet. 



CHAPTER III 

ENTERS HARVARD COLLEGE — DISLIKE FOR MATHEMATICS — DE- 
PORTMENT — POPULARITY — FRIENDS — EXCURSION TO LAKE 
CHAMPLAIN — SOCIETIES — PRIZES AND STANDING 

And so it was settled that Charles should go to Harvard Col- 
lege. He entered September first, 182G. Time has wrought 
many changes in the college since then. Its undergraduates 
have more than quadrupled in number and there has been a 
corresponding increase in the faculty. Some of its halls then 
standing still remain but they have been refitted and are now 
the least valuable part of its property, its best buildings having 
since been erected. It now ranks as the oldest and one of the 
wealthiest seats of learning in the land. It was then Harvard 
College ; it is now Harvard University. The schools of theology, 
medicine and law, though some steps had been taken towards 
their establishment, may be said to be the work of later years. 
Many of the names which have given luster to its faculty have 
since been added, — Story, Greenleaf, Parsons, Quincy, Everett, 
Felton, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz. They were men of high 
culture and broad intelligence and have stamped their character 
upon the institution. The course of study is enlarged and its 
requirements are more exacting but more reasonable. Its stu- 
dents are no longer required to continue studies for which they 
have neither taste nor capacity. Since the school days of Sum- 
ner the elective system has been introduced which offers them 
greater freedom in the choice of studies suited to their purpose, 
without injury to their class standing. 

The old system was ill-suited to such minds as his. Sumner 
had no taste for mathematics. His want of capacity for such 
studies created a dislike for them and the necessity of mastering 
them imposed by the requirements of the course increased this 
dislike to a feeling of disgust. During a recitation one day, the 
Professor asked him a question, when with characteristic candor 
he replied, " I don't know. You know I don't pretend to know 
anything about mathematics." " Mathematics, Sumner ! Math- 
ematics ! " exclaimed the teacher, " Don't you know the differ- 
ence? This is not mathematics. This is physics." A laugh 
from the class followed, at Sumner's expense. The farther he 



13 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

advanced in the mathematical course, the greater his difficulties 
became. At last, in preparing his recitations he is said to have 
accustomed himself to commit whole problems and demon- 
strations to memory, being unable to follow the course of reason- 
ing. The examinations he of course dreaded. In 1829 writing 
to a classmate, he said : " Brown went home and escaped the 
mathematical examination. That I attended. All I can say- 
about myself is, gratia Deo, I escaped with life." 

This deficiency of Sumner affected his position in his class. 
A high standing in our American colleges depends more upon 
making a fair recitation every time in every study, than upon 
making a brilliant recitation sometimes in some study. Wlien 
Sumner entered college he had hopes of reaching distinction in 
his class and he strove to do so, but this deficiency in mathe- 
matics soon blasted these hopes and thenceforward he studied 
such textbooks as he liked and neglected others. 

But notwithstanding his carelessness of class standing he was, 
as a student, industrious and obedient to the rules of the college.. 
He allowed himself little time for rest and recreation and was 
usually to be found in his room at work. There were of course 
some playful exceptions. Once during his Freshman year, with 
his classmate Bemis, he left the college, without permission, to 
go to the Brighton cattle show. Upon arriving at the fair, 
among the first persons the boys met were their fathers, who 
had likewise been classmates at college. Upon being asked by 
their fathers how they came there and why they had broken the 
college rules by leaving without permission, they apologized for 
their conduct by saying that they wished to come to the fair and 
thought there could be no harm in doing so as they would miss 
no recitation by their absence. The fathers made no farther 
objection but advised them to return at once. Mr. Sumner, 
however, taking young Bemis aside asked him how Charles 
stood in mathematics. " Very well, indeed, sir," said he, with 
unquestionable fidelity to his classmate. " I am glad to hear 
it," said Mr. Sumner. " He is doing better than I did. I let 
drop the links and lost the chain and have never been able to 
take it up again." 

We find also one other breach of the college rules, more a 
joke, however, than a defiance of authority. The rules pre- 
scribed the dress of an undergraduate and among other things, 
if a summer vest was worn it was to be white. Sumner wore a 
buff-colored one. He was warned by the college authorities that 
he was violating the rule. He replied that his vest was white or 
near enough so to comply with the regulation, and continued 
to wear it. The admonition was repeated again and again but 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 13 

Charles maintained that his was a substantial compliance with 
the rule. At last the authorities gave it up, not, however, until 
they had vindicated their offended authority by adding a small 
fine to his term bill by way of punishment. 

Sumner was a favorite with his classmates. At this early 
age he showed that polite consideration for the feelings of others 
which became characteristic of him in maturer years. He was 
upright and honorable in his conduct and was disposed to put 
the same construction upon the motives of others. There was 
nothing morbid in his disposition; he enjoyed a well-timed 
joke, would willingly play a game of chess or cards and was 
always ready to do a kindness for a friend. It would be hard 
to find one more devoted to his friends than he was. As he had 
always lived in Boston and had been five years in the Latin 
school, his circle of acquaintances in college was larger than 
that of most of his classmates. He did not confine his friend- 
ship to one class. With little distinction he mingled with the 
members of every class both in their rooms and in their recre- 
ations. For what is known as society he cared nothing and 
though his connections in Boston and Cambridge afforded him 
opportunities for entering it, unlike most boys he does not seem 
to have cared to improve them. He preferred to be with those 
who had aspirations and sympathies like his own. 

His most intimate college friends were John W. Brown, 
Jonathan F. Stearns, Charlemagne Tower, Thomas Hopkinson, 
John B. Kerr and Barzillai Frost. The first two were his 
chums, Stearns in his freshman and Brown in sophomore and 
senior years. The former afterwards entered the ministry, the 
latter studied law. Of them all, he was most intimate with 
Brown. His buoyant spirits, his energy amounting almost to 
violence, his independence of thought and action, his wayward 
disposition, delighting in the works and the character of Byron, 
had a peculiar fascination for Sumner. They remained friends 
through life, corresponding after graduation, together again at 
the Law school, members of the same bar, Sumner after Brown's 
death in ISGO writing a sympathetic tribute to his memory. 

In his junior year together with three classmates he made an 
excursion on foot to Lake Champlain. This is the first evidence 
of that love of travel which afterwards developed itself. It 
seems like the first promptings of a restless energy characteristic 
of the family. 

The boys started on the fourteenth of July, 1829, going first 
to Amherst where they arrived, weary and foot-sore on the 
evening of the third day and immediately refreshed themselves 
with the prayer in the college chapel. Afterwards they viewed 



j^4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the college buildings and enjoyed the fine prospect of the sur- 
rounding country from the chapel tower. The next morning 
they started to ascend Mt. Holyoke and having lost their 
way, in the by-paths of the mountain, they turned their faces 
directly towards the summit, pushing through brambles, clam- 
bering over rocks, crawling around precipices, often in danger 
of their lives until they reached the top at last. Their efforts 
were rewarded by the magnificent prospect which lay before 
them, " with river of silver, winding through meadows of gold." 
From Mt. Holyoke they went to Deerfield and Bloody-Brook, 
scenes of Indian warfare and massacre, thence to Bennington, 
passing the night on the battlefield of the Eevolution where 
the cause of the colonists began to brighten. Pursuing their 
way, they reached Ticonderoga at last, having travelled two 
hundred and three miles in nine days. On their return they 
passed through Saratoga to Albany, pausing at the former 
place to view the scenes of Burgoyne's defeat and surrender. At 
Albany, Sumner parted company with Babcock, the last of his 
companions, the others. Frost and Munroe, unable to keep up, 
having long before been left behind. From Albany Sumner 
pursued his journey alone to New York, travelling by boat and 
stopping on the way a few hours at both Catskill and West 
Point. 

This was his first view of the Hudson, then as now famed as 
one of the most beautiful rivers of the world. He found it 
even thus early carrying on its broad, still flowing waters, 
crowds of tourists, among hills and valleys and mountains of 
surpassing loveliness. Its shores are dotted with scenes of his- 
toric interest recalling the struggles of the settlers with the 
Indians and later with the British. The whole region is en- 
veloped in a halo of legend and song such as gathers around 
no other part of our country. 

Sumner kept a journal of his trip in which he records the 
events and impressions of each day. It is fullest when dwell- 
ing upon these scenes made memorable by the struggles of the 
colonists with enemies who were loath to give up such a fair 
possession. Extracts from this journal were afterward pub- 
lished in a Boston paper, the first of his writings to appear 
in print save an essay on the English Universities, which ante- 
dated the other by a few months. 

This essay was read to " The Nine," a college society which 
he together with eight of his classmates organized in their 
senior year. It was a secret association for mutual improve- 
ment, receiving its name from the number of its members and 
meeting weekly in one of their rooms. In his Junior year 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 15 

Sumner became a member of another society, " The Hasty Pud- 
ding Club." 

In his Senior year he contended for the Bowdoin prize, 
given for excellence in English composition. The svibject as- 
signed was, " The present Character of the Inhabitants of New 
England as resulting from the Civil, Literary and Eeligious 
Institutions of the First Settlers." His essay was signed, " A 
Son of New England." He received the second prize, thirty 
dollars, and invested it in books. Among them was a copy 
of Shakespeare's Works which he kept afterwards upon his 
table, ready for use. On the day of his death it was found 
there open with his mark between the pages, where he had just 
noted with his pencil the passage in " Henry, the Seventh." 

" Would Ifwere dead, if God's good will were so, 
For what is in this world but grief and woe." 

At the Junior Exhibition of his class, he performed the part 
of the " orator " in a Greek dialogue. At the Senior Exhibition 
and also at commencement, he had parts in conferences, his 
being respectively, " Bonaparte as a statesman and soldier," 
and " The Eeligious Notions of the North American Indians." 
He seems to have been dissatisfied with the places assigned him 
on these occasions and wished to decline them and would prob- 
ably have done so but for the earnest protest of his father. 
Though the places were not such as his classmates thought he 
deserved, they were probably all his standing warranted. 

In his class Sumner excelled in the humanities and in dec- 
lamation and composition. His performances of that time 
resembled his later works, though marked with less strength 
and accuracy in the use of words. In public speaking he had 
the same earnest yet subdued manner which afterward seemed 
to impress his audiences with the thought that he had a greater 
power in reserve than he cared to wield. In proficiency in the 
languages he had few equals among his classmates. He was 
well instructed in the rudiments of these studies in the Latin 
School and the high rank he took in them at his entrance to 
college, he maintained through the course. He entered so much 
into the spirit of them that many passages of the books he read 
were impressed upon his memory and were ready for use when 
a happy opportunity for quotation occurred. The fluency and 
diction of his translations impressed his classmates. He en- 
joyed these studies but his proficiency in them was the result 
of careful study. 

His diligence, in such studies as he enjoyed, is illustrated by 
something which occurred in his sophomore year. In the 



16 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

months of February and March, he attended lectures delivered 
by Professor Ticknor on French Literature. Sumner took such 
an interest in them that at the close of each lecture he wrote out 
so much of it as he could remember and then at the end added 
an index to the whole course. His notes were so voluminous 
as to occupy one hundred and fifty jDages of his notebook. 
Such industry produced its natural result and had it not been 
for his failure in mathematics it is fair to conclude that he 
would have been among the first scholars of his class. It is im- 
possible now to tell what his class standing really was, the 
scales by which it is determined having been lost or destroyed. 
His class contained forty-eight members and he probably stood 
between the twentieth and twenty-fifth. 

Because he did not take a higher position, he has been pointed 
to as an illustration of the error, as pernicioifs as it is erroneous, 
that boys of high standing are never heard of after they leave 
college. The records of every college disprove this. The re- 
sult attained by a careful examination of the records of five 
of the most celebrated of our American colleges is that "the 
conclusion is irresistible that the vast majority of the scholars, 
the writers, the clergymen, the lawyers and the statesmen who 
have gained distinction by the work of their life have first won 
distinction in the college recitation and lecture room. A like 
conclusion was reached by Macaulay after an examination of 
the records of the English Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. " It seems to me," he says, " that there never was a 
fact proved by a larger mass of evidence or a more unvaried 
experience than this, that men who distinguished themselves 
in their youth above their contemporaries almost always keep 
to the end of their lives the start which they have gained — the 
general rule is beyond all doubt that the men who were first in 
the competition of the schools have been first in the competi- 
tion of the world." The college life of Sumner proves the same 
fact. He displayed in college the same moral qualities, the 
same proficiency in writing and speaking, the same love of liter- 
ature as lie afterwards displayed in the Senate. The same traits 
of character which gave him eminence among his classmates 
gave him eminence among men and in public life. 

He was never extravagant. When years afterwards in the 
Senate he was asked by a friend, why he did not adopt a more 
luxurious manner of life, he replied, "the nation cannot afford 
to give me more than six thousand dollars a year and I cannot 
afford to spend more than she gives." He was not extravagant 
in college. His four annual term bills average less than two 
hundred dollars each. He was always of steady purpose. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 17 

Though unexpected obstacles might make the attainment of 
his object more difficult, whatever he undertook he would spare 
no effort to do. His love of reading which appeared so strong 
in the Latin School, became stronger during his college course. 
He spent much of his time in this way, reading widely and 
well, his memory, always remarkable, enabling him, with little 
effort, to retain whatever he wished. His favorite author was 
Shakespeare, from whose writings he was continually quoting 
from memory. In his senior year he commenced to keep a com- 
mon-place book, copying into it extracts chiefly from the old 
English authors and from the current literature of the day. He 
continued to keep this book ; and many of the quotations m his 
public efforts of a later day are taken from this source. The 
extent of his reading was remarked by his classmates and not 
without reason, for at his graduation he had, perhaps, a larger 
acquaintance with books than any member of his class. 



CHAPTER IV 

UNDECIDED AS TO PROFESSION — PRIZE FOR ESSAY ON COMMERCE 
— WORK OF YEAR AFTER GRADUATION — ENTERS LAW SCHOOL 
— INDUSTRY — FRIENDSHIP OF PROFESSORS STORY AND ASH- 
MUN — ADMITTED TO BAR — VISITS WASHINGTON — CHAR- 
ACTER 

Sumner graduated at Harvard College August twenty-fifth, 
1830. His attachments to the place and to his classmates were 
strong and he believed his regret at the separation was greater 
than that of most of the members of his class. This feeling of 
regret was increased by the uncertainty of his future course. 
His friends had chosen their professions but he had not. 
Brown, Tower and Hopkinson, those with whom he was most 
intimate, had chosen the law and this was his preference, but 
the fear of natural unfitness and of failure, caused him many 
misgivings and left him, at last, undecided. He mistrusted his 
ability to reach the position he desired in the profession. In 
these difficulties his father gave him no assistance, but seemed 
determined to leave him to the freedom of his own choice. He 
expressed no wish and gave him no advice, doubtless having in 
mind his own career and thinking that the question was one 
of immediate concern to Charles alone and that if left entirely 
to himself he would be more laborious in the pursuit of the 
profession he chose. But this silence troubled Charles who per- 
haps misconstrued it. One of his reasons for hesitating to 
choose any profession, was a desire, almost morbid, to save his 
father any farther expense on his account. For this reason he 
sought, though unsuccessfully, the position of usher in the 
Boston Latin School. 

The first year after his graduation was spent at home pur- 
suing a course of private study. We find him taking a sterner 
view of life. With real candor, he wrote to his classmate: 
" Tower, you and I are both young and the world is all before 
us. You are ambitious I know, and I am not ashamed to con- 
fess, though ' by that sin fell the angels,' that I also am guilty. 
We are then fellow laborers in the same field, we are both strik- 
ing our sickles at the same harvest. Its golden sheaves are all 
pointing to you. You have been laborious and I have not. I 
18 



LIFE OF CHARLES SU3INER 19 

have trod the primrose and you the thorny path. — There is no 
railway to fame. Labor, labor must be before our eyes, nay 
more, its necessity must sink deep in our hearts. This is the 
most potent alchemy to transmute lead to gold." 

During this winter the Boston Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge offered a prize to the minor who would pro- 
duce the best essay on a subject relating to trade, commerce or 
manufactures. The essay was to be presented to the committee 
by January first, 1831. A short time before the day specified 
Sumner determined to contest for it and accordingly prepared 
and presented an essay on Commerce. On the first day of 
April following he was declared the successful competitor. The 
decision was announced by the President of the Society, Daniel 
Webster, at the close of a lecture, on the evening of that day. 
Sumner was asked to come forward and receive the prize, Lie- 
ber's Encyclopedia Americana, valued at thirty dollars. He did 
so and was taken by the hand by Mr. Webster and kindly com- 
plimented and assured that his country had a pledge of him. 

As has already been remarked, Sumner revealed in college a 
talent for composition and declamation and in such work 
ranked among the best in his class. He was now showing a de- 
cided interest in these subjects and his letters of the time con- 
tain frequent allusions to the oratorical displays he witnessed 
and to the triumphs of the orators. It was the gradual awak- 
ening of the latent spirit of the coming man. He was espe- 
cially attracted to the great orator of the Boston of that day, 
" the huge leviathan of New England," as he called him, Daniel 
Webster. More than four years before, Mr. Webster delivered 
in Faneuil Hall his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. Sumner, 
then a mere boy in the Latin School, wedged his way into the 
throng, just in time to hear the supposed speech of John 
Adams, considered by those who heard it, the finest passage 
of the oration. It left an enduring impression on the boy. 
In the October previous to taking the prize for his essay on 
Commerce, he had gone on two successive evenings to Faneuil 
Hall to hear Mr. Webster discuss the tariff question and about 
the same time he went to Salem to hear his argument in the 
trial of Joseph J. Knapp for the murder of Stephen White. 

These, however, were diversions. At the beginning of the 
year, fearful that he might be tempted to waste his time, Sum- 
ner prescribed a course of study for himself. He thus de- 
scribed it to a classmate, " a course of mathematics, Juvenal, 
Tacitus, a course of modern history, Hallam's Middle Ages, 
Eoscoe's " Leo " and " Lorenzi " and Robertson's " Charles 
Fifth," with indefinite quantities of Shakespeare, Burton, Brit- 



20 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ish Poets, etc., and writing an indefinite number of long letters. 
I have doomed myself to hard labor and I shall try to look upon 
labor as some great lawyer did, as pleasure — ' Labor ipse volup- 
tas V' Sumner showed that he was not afraid of labor, by vol- 
untarily undertaking the study of mathematics. Though so lit- 
tle to his taste, he studied them faithfully, during part of the 
year devoting four hours each day to geometry alone. With 
such application he succeeded, but he still found them a dis- 
agreeable study. " I am now digging among the roots of Alge- 
bra," he wrote to a friend, " and believe your opinion will bear 
me out, when I say that these roots when obtained are but 
bitter." 

He, however, completed the course he prescribed. He read 
besides, in Latin, Persius; and in English, a number of books, 
among which was the " Correspondence of Gilbert Wakefield 
with Charles James Fox, chiefly on subjects of Classical Liter- 
ature." But at the close of the year he looked back with dis- 
satisfaction. " The latter part of this year," he wrote, " has 
been given up to unprofitableness. I have indeed studied or 
passed my eyes over books, but much of my time and almost my 
whole mind have been occupied with newspapers and politics." 
Freemasonry was then agitating tlie public and this subject, 
which he was attracted to by his father's interest in it, he gave 
too much time. 

But the commencement of another year brought a change. 
He determined to study law and on the first of September, 1831, 
he entered the Law School of Harvard College. Newspapers 
and politics were dismissed. The latter he so much forgot as 
shortly afterwards to congratulate a Professor upon his election 
to the State Senate, not knowing that he had just been defeated. 
His choice of the profession of law was made after much hesi- 
tation and without enthusiasm, but his ideal was high and he 
determined to be satisfied with no inferior position. 

He wrote to his classmate Stearns : " I had rather be a toad 
and live upon dungeon's vapor than one of those lumps of flesh 
that are christened lawyers and who know only how to wring 
from quibbles and obscurities that justice which else they never 
would reach, who have no idea of the law beyond its letter, nor 
of literature beyond their term Eeports and statutes. If I am 
a lawyer I wish to be one, who can dwell upon the vast heap of 
law matter as the temple in whieh the majesty of right has 
taken its abode, who will aim beyond the mere letter at the 
spirit, the broad spirit of the law and who will bring to his aid 
a liberal and cultivated mind. Is not this an honest ambition? 
If not, reprove me for it. A lawyer is one of the best or worst 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 21 

of men, according as he shapes his course. He may breed 
strifes or he may settle the dissensions of years. But when 1 
look before me and above me and see the impendent weight, — 
molem ingentem et perpetuis humeris sustinendam, — I incon- 
tinently shrink back. Book peers above book and one labor of 
investigation is gone through with only to show a greater one, — 
' what man has done, man can do ' and in these words is a full 
fountain of hope. And here again Burke, ' There is nothing in 
the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of 
an informed understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There 
is nothing that God has judged for us that he has not given us 
the means to accomplish, both in the natural and moral world.' 
What a sentiment, how rich in expression, how rich in truth. 
But such results cannot be accomplished without labor, sys- 
tematic and well directed. I am determined that if health is 
continued to me, lack of study shall not be laid to my charge. 
Study is my talisman." 

Sumner divided his time, forenoon to law, afternoon to 
classics and evenings to history and subjects auxiliary to law. 
Two o'clock in the morning was his usual hour for retiring to 
rest. He roomed at number ten, Divinity Hall, and later in 
Dane Hall, retired parts of the college, working hard, allowing 
himself little time for rest and recreation, having few associates, 
taking little exercise, seldom out of his room at nights. This 
severe application troubled his friends, who feared that his con- 
stitution could not sustain such drafts as he made upon it, a 
tendency to consumption being hereditary in his family. 

Though his course of reading while in the Law School was 
large, he gave especial attention to the prescribed studies, read- 
ing carefully the notes and many of the cases referred to in 
his textbooks. He continued his habit of common-placing and 
copied into his note-book the definitions given in some parts of 
Blackstone's Commentaries. His teachers were impressed with 
his remarkable memory and the facility with which he recalled 
the results of his reading. 

In 1832 he was appointed librarian of the Law School and in 
this capacity he soon became so familiar with the library as to 
be able to find any book on its shelves, in the dark. The text- 
books in it he familiarized himself with, so that he could give a 
summary of the contents of almost every one of them, together 
with a brief biographical sketch of the author. It was owing 
to these circumstances that even thus early, his assistance was 
occasionally sought by practising attorneys in the preparation 
of their briefs. He continued librarian during the remainder 
of his course at the Law School. The last year he prepared a 



22 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

catalogue of the library with a brief sketch of its origin and 
growth, for which he was paid by the corporation. 

In 1832, Sumner competed successfully for another Bowdoin 
prize. From a number of subjects proposed, he chose this: 
" Are the most Important Changes of Society effected Gradually 
or by Violent Ecvolutions " ? He chose this subject because 
his previous historical reading would enable him to discuss it 
intelligently without special preparation or interruption to his 
prescribed studies. His performance, more than fifty pages in 
length, was commenced about a fortnight previous to the day 
specified for its presentation and was written in the intervals of 
time at his command. It bears the marks of haste and is not 
superior to the performances of young men of his age. He 
argued that the most important changes of society are effected 
gradually and that such revolutions are to be encouraged, but 
that violent ones are not. 

He was also during the last year of his connection with the 
Law School an occasional contributor to periodicals. An 
article in the American Monthly Eeview on " Impeachments " 
and another in the American Jurist, a review of a lecture by 
Professor Parke on Courts of Equity were favorably spoken of 
at the time. The latter is referred to by Judge Story in a 
note to his " Equity Jurisprudence ", with the remark that he 
"knew not where to refer the reader to pages more full of 
useful comment and research ". 

Sumner was at this time the president of a temperance 
society established among the students. It seems to have been 
a trait of his character to be strongly attracted by any move- 
ment which could surround itself with the charm of novelty. 
Previous to this he had warmly supported the anti-masonic 
movement ; later in life we find him equally earnest in the cause 
of universal peace, universal freedom and universal suffrage. 
Age had no charm for him. For one situated as he was destined 
to be it was perhaps well; but for men in ordinary times it 
should have more. 

Sumner's application while a student at the Law School soon 
attracted the attention of his professors, Joseph Story and John 
H. Ashmun. The former, the author of works on commercial 
and constitutional law, was also one of the Justices of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. He and Sumner's father 
while students together at Harvard had been friends. This 
friendship, never interrupted, first brought Charles to Story's 
attention. There has seldom been a more beautiful relation be- 
tween teacher and pupil than that which thus commenced. It 
was interrupted only by death. The simplicity and purity of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 23 

Sumner's character, liis appreciative disposition, his enthusi- 
asm, his love for knowledge, the extent of his reading and his 
capacity to retain what he read, his ambition in his chosen pro- 
fession, the earnest effort he made to realize it, all appealed to 
Story's love for young men. He came to regard Sumner al- 
most as a son. Pie directed his studies, advised his reading, 
welcomed him to his home, his fireside and his confidence. 

If Story sent books from Washington for distribution, it 
was Sumner's hand which delivered them. If Story's place at 
the Law School was vacant it soon became Sumner's duty to 
fill it. If Story's son wanted a playfellow, it was Sumner who 
was always willing to interest or instruct him. After Sumner 
was in his grave and this boy, man-grown, was left to record the 
friendship, it is touching to read his recollection of it, which 
seems so tenderly to draw aside the veil from this scene of 
happy boyhood, hallowed by the touch of death. Everything 
about it seems sacred, the books they exchanged, the passages 
they read, the stories they told, their amusements, all are 
tinged with that tenderness which only the grave can add, 
mingled with thoughts of childhood and innocence and friend- 
ship and fidelity. As Sumner over the grave of Story, the 
father, wrote his " Tribute of Friendship ", so Story, the son, 
over the grave of Sumner added his " In Memoriam ". The 
influence of Story on Sumner's character was handed on by 
Sumner to Story's son. It is difficult to measure this influence. 
Sumner's respect and admiration for Story now were almost 
boundless. For many years he was his ideal and a better ideal 
for an ambitious young man it would be difficult to find. 

Joseph Story was born at Marblehead, Mass., in 1779, 
graduated from Harvard College in 1798, was admitted to the 
bar and rapidly rose to eminence in his profession. In 1809 he 
entered Congress, but declined a re-election and was returned 
to the Legislature of Massachusetts of which he became Speaker 
in 1811 and then resigned this office to become one of the 
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. This posi- 
tion he filled until his death in 1845. He ranks as one of the 
ablest men that ever had a place upon the bench. He was a 
man of great industry and of unusual mental vigor. Besides 
the great work of his office he was the author of numerous trea- 
tises, and published reports of his decisions on the circuit, and 
was the leading spirit in organizing and conducting the Law 
School of Harvard College. As a jurist and exponent of con- 
stitutional law he stood in the front rank, not only in his own 
country, but also in Europe. And as a lecturer and the author 
of occasional addresses he showed high literary ability. But 



24 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

with all his great work, he never lost his naturalness, his ap- 
proachableness, his eager thirst for knowledge and his vivacity 
of spirits wliich made him so attractive to young men. His 
ready wit and the contagious heartiness of his laugh were as 
marked as the purity and high purpose of his life. 

Sumner's controlling ambition from the time he had studied 
law sufficiently to fix a plan in life, until 1845, was to be a 
jurist. He never appears to have been fitted or disposed to en- 
gage in wrangling disputes at the bar. Guided by Story's ex- 
ample, his aspiration was to occupy the position of a judge or 
a professor in the Law School; and be known as Blackstone, 
Puffendorf and Kent are known. 

Much friendship was also shown by Professor Ashmun for 
Sumner. Ashmun being younger than Story, his relation to 
Sumner approached nearer to intimacy. Sumner seeing him 
approach one day quietly remarked to a fellow student that he 
was going to get a compliment from the Professor. When he 
came up Sumner politely offered him a chair, and after the 
usual salutations and a little other talk, commenced : " There is 
a lawyer down at the Cape who says he can beat any man in the 
State pleading, but that Ashmun ". And then, with a look of 
despondency, added : " But as for me I can't plead. I don't 
know anything about it ". And then stopped for the expected 
compliment. But the Professor answered : " No, you don't 
know anything. And what is more, you never will ". 

Ashmun's health, though he was a young man, was even at 
this time broken. He died soon after of consumption, Sumner 
alone being with him at the time of his death, his nurse for 
the night. During the same period Sumner met with a nearer 
loss by death. His twin sister Matilda died March sixth, 1830, 
also of consumption. Professor Ashmun was succeeded by 
Simon Greenleaf. 

Sumner left the Law School in December, 1833. He in- 
tended to leave earlier, but remained at the suggestion of Judge 
Story. He wished to gain a more accurate knowledge of the 
practice and for this purpose in January, 1834, he entered the 
law office of Eand & Fisk in Boston. Benjamin Rand under 
wliose immediate tuition he was, had a high standing at the bar 
for judgment, integrity and learning, qualities which make an 
able counsellor, but he does not seem to have aspired to dis- 
tinction in court practice. He was an intimate friend of Judge 
Story whose calls at the office during the unoccupied portion 
of their time were always occasions when Sumner became a 
willing listener to the conversation. Sumner gave attention 
chiefly to the details of office work. He also continued his con- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 25 

tributions to the American Jurist and, in the following May, 
became one of its editors. He was admitted to the bar in Sep- 
tember, 1834, at Worcester, there being no court in session at 
that season of the year in Boston competent to grant admis- 
sions. 

From the middle of February to the beginning of April, 
1834, Sumner's studies in the law office were interrupted by a 
visit to Washington, undertaken at the suggestion of Judge 
Story. He devoted his attention while there chiefly to the 
Supreme Court, but also gave some to Congress. The former 
was then the scene of discussion of questions which have since 
been appealed to other tribunals and are now incorporated in 
our political history. In the Senate, in 1852, when advocating 
the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, Sumner, in referring to 
this visit, said : " Among the memories of my youth are happy 
days when I sat at the feet of this tribunal, while Marshall pre- 
sided, with Story by his side ". 

Congress then had under discussion the National bank ques- 
tion, which attracted so much attention, during Jackson's Ad- 
ministration. Neither before nor since have there been three 
such men there to discuss any question as Webster, Calhoun 
and Clay who were there then in their prime. Sumner ad- 
mired the attainments of all of them, but especially the graceful 
and forcible eloquence of Clay. A card from Mr. Webster 
secured him a seat on the floor of the senate whenever he 
■wished to occupy it. 

Judge Story opened the way for him to every circle and 
enabled him to make some valuable acquaintances. Sumner 
met the Eeporters, Wheaton and Peters, he dined with the 
Judges of the Supreme Court and received marks of attention 
from Chief Justice Marshall, whose greatness and simplicity 
impressed him. He there met for the first time, Rufus Choate 
and Francis Lieber. With the latter he became an intimate 
friend and a frequent correspondent. On his return home he 
stopped a few days in Philadelphia, visiting the Reporter, 
Peters, at his home and enjoying some other hospitalities. In 
passing through New York on his journey to Washington he 
had been introduced by a letter from Professor Greenleaf to 
James Kent, the author of the Commentaries on American Law. 

He returned to his profession with more love for it and a 
greater dislike for politics, little thinking what an arena 
Washington was to be for him. On leaving there, he wrote to 
his father : " I probably shall never come here again. I have 
little or no desire ever to come again in any capacity. Nothing 
that I have seen of politics has made me look upon them with 



36 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

any feeling other than loathing. The more I see of them the 
more I love law which I feel will give me an honorable liveli- 
hood. Mr. Peters, who has treated me with great friendship, 
told me when I was remarking to him as above, that before 
1840 I should come on to Washington (if I were willing) to 
argue some causes in the Supreme Court. This anticipation, 
flattering of course, was dictated undoubtedly by Judge Story's 
friendly recommendation of me. However, I do not presume 
to indulge any such anticipations. When indulged by others I 
let them pass for what they are worth." 

Sumner's personal appearance at this time presented a re- 
markable contrast to that of his maturer years. He was six 
feet and three inches tall; but weighed only a hundred and 
twenty pounds. He was stooped in his carriage and awkward 
in his movements, sprawling rather than sitting in a chair. 
His hair was of dark brown color, his eyes blue but usually 
inflamed by excessive use, his features were rough, his com- 
plexion sallow and indicated a want of sufficient exercise. 
Nothing redeemed his face from ugliness, but a beautiful set of 
teeth and a winning smile which generally secured for him a 
favorable impression at the first introduction. 

He was careless of his general appearance and gave little 
attention to' dress, in this respect differing from his taste in 
later years when he became somewhat particular in the choice 
of clothes. He had little imagination, no humor and cared 
nothing for athletic games. He was conscientious in his con- 
duct, but not religious ; he believed in God, but seemed to have 
doubts, which later in life were removed, of the divinity of 
Christ. He had decision of character and steadiness of purpose 
to accomplish a desired end. His qualities of mind and heart 
easily secured him friends. His hearty laugh, his appreciative 
disposition, his kindliness, always ready to do a favor for a 
friend, the charm of his conversation, his scholarly aspirations, 
his freedom from sham, his real worth, were qualities which 
recommended him among men. 

To women he seemed to be indifferent. He would at any 
time turn his back upon the loveliest girl to talk to some man 
who could tell him something of interest. This trait of his 
character was so noticeable that his friends Avould occasionally 
lay wagers with sprightly and interesting girls that they could 
not keep him at their side a quarter of an hour. Notwithstand- 
ing every art they could employ the girls usually lost their bets. 
Men he liked best, tliough he appreciated sensible and intel- 
ligent women not, however, because they were women, but be- 
cause they had traits of character which he admired. 



CHAPTER V 

LAW PRACTICE — EDITING THE JURIST OTHER PUBLICATIONS — 

INSTRUCTOR IN HARVARD LAW SCHOOL THE FIVE OF 

CLUBS 

Imimediately upon his admission to the bar, Sumner com- 
menced the practice of his profession in Boston. His first case 
was the defence of a man indicted for sending another a chal- 
lenge to fight a duel. The trial attracted some attention and 
resulted in the man being cleared. A newspaper of the fol- 
lowing day in noticing it characterized Sumner as " a young 
gentleman more deeply read in the law than any other in- 
dividual of similar age ". He was associated in the case with 
George S. Hillard, who was near his own age but had been ad- 
mitted to the bar about a year earlier. In the November fol- 
lowing Sumner and Hillard formed a partnership under the 
firm name of " Hillard & Sumner ". Their office was at No. 4 
Court Street. Sumner roomed in the same building with 
Luther S. Cushing, later the author of " Cushing's Manual of 
Parliamentary Practice ". He took his meals at a restaurant. 
Hillard had 'literary tastes and a genial disposition and to- 
gether they attracted many visitors to their office. Story and 
Greenleaf were among the number; the latter placed a desk 
there calling it " our office " and there he met the clients he 
served during his connection with the Law School. 

But visitors were more numerous than clients. Sumner's 
success was not what he desired nor such as his laborious prep- 
aration for the profession had justified him in expecting. 
The number of his cases was not large and the amount involved 
in many of them was small. The Jurist and the Law School 
occupied a considerable portion of his time. Of the former he 
continued to be one of the editors and in the latter he became 
an instructor and during a great part of the year spent each 
alternate day in Cambridge, in that work. These were serious 
obstacles to professional success, for clients are quick to observe 
such division of attention. They prefer an attorney who is 
always to be found at his desk, ready to serve them with single- 
ness of purpose. Sumner thus easily drifted away from his 
office. It was his ambition to be a Judge, an author or a 
27 



28 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

teacher, in his profession, rather than a practitioner and he came 
to prefer such work as the Jurist and the Law School required. 

His associates in the work of editing the Jurist were Hillard 
and Gushing. It was as its name indicates a legal periodical, 
published monthly in Boston and always maintained a good 
standing in the estimation of the Bar of the State. It numbered 
at this time among its contributors some men who have since 
gained a wide reputation, as writers upon legal subjects, — 
Simon Greenleaf, author of the "Law of Evidence", 
Theophilus Parsons, author of the "Law of Contracts", 
Theron Metcalf also the author of a work on " Contracts " 
and Willard Phillips, author of a work on " Insurance ". 

A large share of the work of editing the Jurist fell to 
Sumner. It is not now possible to determine, with accuracy, 
his contributions, but many of them are distinguishable, the 
longer ones being marked with his initials, and the shorter ones, 
by references to them in his correspondence and by peculiarities 
of style. They are all carefully written and show the author's 
familiarity with literature, but one thing is noticeable of them, 
they are not upon strictly legal subjects. He preferred to write 
upon the literature of the law rather than upon the law itself. 
His articles are historical sketches of libraries and law schools, 
reviews of legal publications, propositions for legal reform, 
rather than upon the law of real property, agency, promissory 
notes, etc. 

His ability and industry now recognized, were sought for in 
other directions. During 1835 and 1836 he edited ''Andrew 
Dunlap's Admiralty Practice ". The author, the U, S. District 
Attorney for Massachusetts, had just completed the text of the 
work when he was seized by disease with such violence that he 
was compelled to resign his office and almost entirely refrain 
from labor. He was deeply interested in his book and longed 
to complete it. His inability to do so led him to ask the as- 
sistance of Sumner, whose fitness for the work he recognized. 
Sumner promptly undertook it but found it an arduous task. 
The text had to be revised, the notes written, the practical 
forms added, the index prepared and the work carried through 
the press. Much of it had to be done under the jealous eye of 
the author who now felt that this book would be his only claim 
to the consideration of posterity. Sumner gave his time freely 
to the work. The practical forms which are a considerable and 
valuable part of the book, he contributed to it himself. Where 
they could be found, he selected them from other books, others 
he adopted from those which had been approved in actual prac- 
tice, some he prepared himself. They are now the standard 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 29 

forms used in admiralty practice. The work was so great that 
the book was not given to the public until almost a year after 
the death of Mr. Dunlap. The preface he dictated four days 
before his death and in grateful and complimentary terms he 
then acknowledged the assistance of Sumner. 

During the same period Sumner prepared for Judge Story 
the index to his " Equity Jurisprudence ", which he was about 
to publish. In 1835, Judge Story also appointed him Reporter 
for the U. S. District Court over which he presided. In this 
capacity, he published three volumes of Judge Story's decisions, 
known as " Sumner's Reports ". They appeared in 1836, 1837 
and 1841. He also delivered lectures at various times, but they 
were chiefly upon subjects suggested by his work in the Law 
School, as The Constitution of the United States, The Law of 
Bailments, etc. He was an occasional contributor to the North 
American Review. 

Sumner commenced to give instruction in the Harvard Law 
School in January, 1835. He supplied the place of Judge 
Story, during the portion of the year he was occupied upon the 
bench of the Supreme Court at Washington. Sometimes Pro- 
fessor Greenleaf was also obliged to be absent during the same 
season upon professional business, he having left an extensive 
practice in Maine to assume the duties of his professorship. . At 
such times the whole responsibility of the Law School fell upon 
Sumner. In discharging his duties he gave instructions both 
by recitations and by lectures. The textbooks were the first 
two volumes of " Kent's Commentaries " and " Starkie on Evi- 
dence ". The volumes he used show signs of careful and 
thorough study. They are considerably worn and contain many 
references in pencil on the margin. This is especially true of 
the first volume of "Kent's Commentaries", which treats of 
the law of nations, of the Constitution of the United States, and 
the sources of municipal law. These were ever afterwards 
favorite subjects of study with Sumner. Little is now remem- 
bered of his method of instruction and this is evidence that it 
was respectable for he was daily exposed to a comparison with 
Storv and Greenleaf. 

This list of his employments shows that Sumner, then hardly 
twenty-five years of age, was a thoroughly industrious and capa- 
ble young man. If work in the courts did not come to him, he 
was willing to take that which did, even though it brought small 
returns in money. He was faithful to his early ideals. Work 
was still his talisman. He was extending his acquisition of 
knowledge and widening his influence and adding to his fame. 
He was cultivating his power as a writer and speaker and lay- 



30 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ing deep and broad a foundation for the future. His habits 
continued good, he allowed no time for evil associations, he kept 
himself busy. 

As usual he had a circle of warm friends about him. He 
and his college classmates had drifted apart but new occupa- 
tions had brought new associations and new friends. Though 
the number of them was not larger than falls to the lot of 
others, his devotion to them was a marked trait of his character. 
It would be difficult to find another, whose time was so care- 
fully husbanded, who was so willing to lay aside his own work 
to entertain or assist friends. This made his friendship valua- 
ble even to a man of prominence and wide influence like Judge 
Story, who was frequently burdened with work which Sumner 
could do as well as he. Professor Greenleaf found his friend- 
ship equally valuable. 

But theirs was also valuable to him. Association with 
them corrected his ideals and communicated to him the lofty 
aspirations by which they were inspired. Their wide acquaint- 
ance among influential men opened up new avenues of acquaint- 
ance to him. His experience in Washington in 1834, when 
Judge Story brought him to the notice of such men as Chief 
Justice Marshall and Mr. Webster, was repeated in 1836, when 
he jnade a tour visiting Providence, New York, Albany, Sara- 
toga, Niagara Falls, Montreal and Quebec, returning by way 
of" Portland. At New York, he dined with Judge Kent, the 
author of " Kent's Commentaries ", at his home and visited the 
suburbs of the city with him. He also met the widow of Gover- 
nor De Witt Clinton and was introduced by her to her brother- 
in-law, Judge Ambrose Spencer, then living in Albany at an 
advanced age. 

Of this visit he wrote: "While in Albany, I saw Judge 
Spencer, who received me kindly because he understood I was 
Judge Story's friend; also Johnson, the reporter, who is one 
of the most agreeable and gentlemanly men I ever met. In- 
deed I had reason to think of Judge Story and be grateful to 
him every step ". 

At Quebec he met Judge Sewell, the Chief Justice of Lower 
Canada and Judge Gaston, the famous North Carolinian. He 
also made the acquaintance at this time of Thomas Brown, a 
young English advocate, with whom he afterwards corre- 
sponded and to whom he was to be indebted for kindness when 
he visited Europe. 

The friendships Sumner now formed were lasting. Francis 
Lieber, whose acquaintance he had made in 183-4, was one of his 
most frequent correspondents. This correspondence continued 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 31 

until Lieber's death in 1872. He was a native of Berlin, but 
came to this country while still a young man and remained 
until his death, occupying professorships in various colleges. 
He was a voluminous writer and was always engaged in some 
literary work. His best known productions are " Civil Liberty 
and Self-Government " and his " Political Ethics ". He was 
an enthusiast in his literary work but sometimes in his search 
for materials made serious drafts upon the time of his friends. 
Sumner, however, was always willing to assist him in securing 
materials, in the publication of his books and in procuring a 
favorable reception for them from the public. He in turn 
frequently aided Sumner with material for his speeches and 
was ever his staunch supporter in his public career. 

Sumner and four of his friends in Boston and Cambridge, 
at this time formed an association which they called the " Five 
of Clubs ". The members were Sumner, Henry R. Cleveland, 
Cornelius C. Felton, George S. Hillard and Henry W. Long- 
fellow. They were near the same age, Sumner, the youngest, 
being twenty-six and Longfellow, the oldest, thirty. They were 
all talented young men of pure lives and high aspirations and 
with the exception of Hillard were all unmarried. Cleveland 
was a teacher, of a refined and sensitive nature, and a grace- 
ful writer, but he died six years later. All the others lived to 
justify their early promise; Longfellow became a great poet; 
Felton, president of Harvard College and an author; Hillard, 
an able lawyer and a legal writer of note ; all are known as men 
of letters and made an impression upon their generation and 
left national reputations. In all the annals of literature 
there can hardly be found an association more beautiful than 
that of these young men. 

They usually met each Saturday afternoon, at the room of 
one of their number to discuss the literature of the day, for- 
eign travel, their own studies and to spend an hour in friendly 
conversation. Each of them submitted to the others, his 
article or book or poem, for comment and criticism, before it 
was given to the public. Longfellow and Cleveland had 
travelled extensively in Europe ; and the otherslonged to do so 
and were interested in everything that was said of the scenes 
of their subjects of study. A table spread with a few delicacies 
gave an additional interest to their meetings. Their conversa- 
tion was interesting and instructive, nothing coarse, and the 
direst company would have been jovial under the influence of 
the hearty laugh and joyous spirit of Felton. 



CHAPTEE VI 

TRIP TO EUROPE — DISADVANTAGES — OPPOSITION" OF FRIENDS — 
MOTIVES FOR TAKING IT — VOYAGE — FRANCE — LEARNING 
FRENCH — SCHOOLS — COURTS — ASSEMBLIES 

For years Sumner had longed to make a trip to Europe. 
While a student in the Law School, he almost completed an 
arrangement with a gentleman by which his expenses for such 
a trip were to be borne, in consideration of services to be ren- 
dered on his return. Later when bantered by Mr. Greenleaf 
about " the perfect woman he was some day to wed ", or rallied 
by his friends about settling down in life, he would answer, " I 
am married to Europa ". It was not, however, until 1837, that 
his wish to visit Europe became a settled purpose. 

Such a trip may easily be made an appropriate conclusion 
to a college course. It is an excellent preparation, for one, who 
aspires to a professorship in some school or to the pursuit of 
letters or to a life of elegant ease. In no other place can a 
knowledge of a modern language be so well obtained as in the 
country where it is spoken. You there hear it used continually, 
with its different forms of expression and pronunciation and 
you can so locate yourself that you must learn to speak the lan- 
guage or have no communication with others. A knowledge of 
it thus becomes imperative and it is then more readily acquired. 
An acquaintance with the people, their manners, institutions 
and literature follows easily a knowledge of their language. 
Such attainments are accomplishments to be desired by any 
one. 

But they should present to one situated as Sumner was 
another consideration, — whether a professional man, to acquire 
them, would be justified in quitting his office and his business, 
for two years, after having fairly commenced his career. The 
law is a jealous mistress. To succeed, one must be willing to 
dedicate to her not only his days and nights, but he must do 
it with every energy which he can command. Clients cannot 
be dismissed and recalled at pleasure. To establish oneself 
well in the legal profession generally requires years of labo- 
rious exertion. Before such a possession is bartered away for 
graceful, but unnecessary accomplishments, the consequences 
33 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 33 

should be carefully calculated. So far as Sumner's law practice 
was concerned, his determination to spend two years in Europe 
was a mistake. 

His friends generally discouraged it. He was much hurt 
at President Quincy of Harvard bluntly telling him, that all 
the orood Europe would do, would be to teach him to wear a 
mustache and carry a cane. Some were afraid he would be 
spoiled by foreign airs and manners ; others thought that the 
continued novelty and excitement of so long a stay in Europe 
would wean him from the profession to which he had been 
devoted so short a time. Whatever the cause may have been, 
the fact is unquestioned, that Sumner never afterwards actively 
engaged in the practice of law. His friends, however, yielded. 
They saw his desire to go was so great that he would be cast 
down if not permitted to carry out his purpose. 

For an absence of two years in Europe about five thousand 
dollars was required to defray his expenses. Of this sum his 
professional savings had been scarcely one-third. His friends 
Judge Story, Samuel Lawrence and Richard Fletcher kindly 
loaned him the balance. To secure him a favorable reception 
in Europe, friends were ready to give him letters of introduc- 
tion. Of these he had altogether about fifteen — to some of the 
most influential persons in England and on the Continent. 
They also gave him such counsel and information as they could 
to advance the purpose of his trip. Lieber wrote out for him 
a number of rules to guide him. The friends who at first dis- 
couraged his trip, when he had determined to go, generously 
furnished him every means in their power to make it profitable. 

The discouragements he met with, made Sumner feel the 
responsibility of the step he was taking. He wrote to Professor 
Greenleaf the day before he sailed : " It is no slight affair to 
break away from business which is to give me my daily bread 
and pass across the sea to untried countries, usages and lan- 
guages. And I feel now pressing with a mountain's weight, the 
responsibility of my step. But I go abroad with the firmest 
determination to devote myself to self-improvement from the 
various sources of study, observation and society; and to re- 
turn an American. Gladly will I receive any of those accom- 
plishments or modifications of character, which justly proceed 
from an extended survey of the human family, I pray fervently 
that I may return with benefits on my head ; and that the affec- 
tation of character and indifference to country which are 
thought sometimes to proceed from travel may not reach me. 
All this is in the unknown future, which I may not penetrate. 
To ilie candid judgment and criticism of my friends, I shall 



34 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

submit myself on my return ; and I shall esteem it one of the 
highest duties of friendship to correct me and to assist in 
bringing me back to the path of sense and simplicity, if it shall 
be found that I have departed from it. Do not let it be said 
then tliat I shall be spoiled by Europe, but rather suggest that 
I shall return with an increased love for my country and ad- 
miration for its institutions and an added capacity for per- 
forming my duty in life. My standard of knowledge and 
character must be elevated and my own ambition have higher 
objects. If this is not so then I shall have seen Europe in vain 
and my friends may regret their generous confidence in me." 

Again in his journal of the day he set sail he wrote : " And 
a sad time it was, full of anxious thoughts and doubts with 
mingled gleams of glorious anticipations. I thought much of 
the position which I abandoned for the present ; the competent 
income which I forsook; the favoring tide whose buoyant 
waters were bearing me so well, which I refused to take even 
at its ebb ; then I thought of the advice and warnings of many 
whose opinions I respect. The dear friends I was to leave be- 
hind all came rushing before me ; and affection for them was a 
new element in the cup of my anxieties. But on the other hand, 
the dreams of my boyhood came before me, the long-pondered 
visions, first suggested by my early studies, and receiving new 
additions with every step of my progress ; my desire which has 
long been above all other desires, to visit Europe ; and my long 
cherished anticipations of the most intellectual pleasure and the 
most permanent profit. Europe and its reverend history, its 
ancient races, its governments handed down from old times, its 
sights memorable in story; above all its present existing in- 
stitutions, laws and society, and its men of note and mind, fol- 
lowed in the train, — and the thought of these reassured my 
spirits. In going abroad at my present age, and situated as I 
am, I feel that I take a bold, almost a rash, step. One should 
not easily believe that he can throw off his clients and then 
whistle them back, ' as a huntsman does his pack '. But I go 
for purposes of education and to gratify longings which prey 
upon my mind and time. * * * The course which my studies 
have taken has also made it highly desirable, that I should have 
the advantage derived from a knowledge of the European lan- 
guages, particularly French and German, and also a moderate 
acquaintance with the laws and institutions of the Old World 
more at least than I can easily gain at home. In my pursuits 
lately I have felt the want of this knowledge, both of the 
langiiages, particularly German, and of the Continental juris- 
prudence. I believe then that by leaving my profession now, I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 35 

make a present sacrifice for a future gain; that I shall return 
with increased abilities for doing good and acting well my part 
in life." 

These passages reveal his motives. The solution is found in 
the aspiration which Sumner was known to have at this time. 
He wished to occupy a professorship in the Law School such 
as Judge Story then occupied and be known to posterity as a 
writer on legal subjects. He wished to study law as a science, 
not tj practice it as a trade, to be instrumental in redifcing its 
principles to something like symmetry and in bringing the mass 
of the common-law into smaller compass. He wished to have 
the civil and criminal law both codified as the latter has been 
since, in many of the States. 

ITpon the subject of codification he was enthusiastic. In 
1836 he was appointed by the Legislature of Massachusetts 
with Judge Story and others a Committee to report on the 
advisability of such a reform in that State. Though declining 
to act as a member of the Committee for fear of the imputation 
of the undue influence of Judge Story, which might arise from 
their friendly relations, he advocated the reform in the Jurist 
and sought the contributions of Professor Mittermaier, an 
eminent German law-writer, in presenting similar views to the 
public. 

He wished to talk on this subject with its advocates in Eu- 
rope. He wished to know these men and to know them inti- 
mately. He wished to see them in their schools, hear their 
lectures, enter with them into the spirit of their work. He 
wished to see their methods of instruction, to know in what they 
excelled and introduce their reforms into his own country. He 
wished to see parliaments and assemblies where laws were made 
and the courts where they were administered and note wherein 
they differed from similar institutions of his own country. He 
intended by this means to fit himself for a life-work. 

After several appointments and as many disappointments, 
Sumner at last fixed his time of sailing, in the early part of 
December, 1837. During November, he made a hurried trip 
to Portland, ]\Iaine, to procure some promised letters of intro- 
duction ; and another to Washington to be made the bearer of 
dispatches, an appointment which would give him some ad- 
vantages. He sailed by the AJhany on December eighth 
from Kew York. The evening previous, until late, he spent in 
writing farewell letters to friends. He had received many from 
them assuring him of their regard, bidding him God-speed and 
reminding him of the honorable career which awaited him on 



36 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



his return. As the vessel sailed slowly down the harbor and 
out to sea, he stood thoughtfully on deck, watching receding 
objects till one after another disappeared and he was left alone, 
with all he loved behind, with nothing before but his own 
bright anticipations, now overshadowed with the gloomy fore- 
bodings of his friends. 

He then went below. Here different experiences awaited 
him. During the next four days he suffered from that sick- 
ness, \Wiich some one has humorously said makes a man feel 
at first afraid he will die, but afterwards, afraid he won't. At 
the end of that time he had so far recovered as to be able to 
read when propped up in his berth and at the expiration^ of a 
week he could go below to his meals. During the remainder 
of his voyage he spent his time, in reading, studying French 
and reviving his knowledge of chess and whist, accomplish- 
ments of his college days which he had put aside for sterner 
tasks. The voyage was a prosperous one and on the evening of 
December twenty-fifth, land was sighted. Sumner was then 
in the English Channel and the dream of years was realized ! 

" My mind," he wrote, " has felt a thrill under the associa- 
tions of these waters; it is my first experience of the rich 
memories of European history. On my left now are the chalky 
cliffs of England — Plymouth, from which the Pilgrim ances- 
tors of New England last started to come to our bleak places ; 
also the Isle of Wight, consecrated by the imprisonment of the 
royal Charles; and the harbor of Portsmouth, big with the 
navies of England. On my right is Ja belle France and the 
smiling province of Normandy ; and the waters which now bear 
this American ship are the same over which Csesar with his 
frail boats, and afterwards William of Normandy passed to 
the Conquest of England. Their waves dash now with the same 
foamy crests as when these two conquerors timidly entrusted 
themselves to their bosom. Civilization, in the mean time, 
with its attendant servants — commerce, printing and Christian- 
ity — has been working changes in the two countries on either 
side ; so that Caesar and William, could they re-visit the earth, 
might not recognize the lands from which they passed or which 
they subdued. The sea receives no impress from man." 

Owing to adverse winds, the Albany did not come to anchor 
at Havre until December twenty-eighth. Sumner then went 
on shore and spent the remainder of the day in viewing the city. 
The next morning he started for Rouen, talking on the road 
to the driver as best he could, with his imperfect French. He 
now felt the need of the language to be able to appreciate the 
objects of interest about him and he was determined to use 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 37 

it and thereby extend his knowledge of it, at every opportunity. 
The next day was spent in Rouen, a considerable part of it in 
viewing the Cathedral, the wonder of the North of France, 
built before the Conquest, when the knowledge of the arts and 
sciences seems to us to have been in its infancy ; and yet it 
appears, to the traveller to-day, as great an achievement in 
architecture as it must have been to its builders. He also 
visited the Hotel de Ville. In its library, he was struck with a 
manuscript he saw, made on parchment by an obscure monk, 
before the discovery of the art of printing. The work was a 
collection of the music used in their service, of no substantial 
value, and yet the labor of transcribing it consumed thirty years 
of time — almost a whole human life, wasted! 

Anxious to see at their height the great gambling hells, which 
were to be abolished throughout France on the first of January, 
Sumner set out for Paris on the morning of December thirty- 
first and reached there at twilight in the evening, — in time to 
see the dens, in their greatest pride, fade away before the law. 
In the journal which he commenced with his voyage and con- 
tinued for four months he has recorded the scene : 

" I went about ten o'clock to Frascati's, — the great " hell " of 
Paris. Passing through an outside court, and then a short 
entry, we entered an antechamber, where there were a large 
number of servants in livery who received our hats and outside 
garments, no one being allowed to enter the gambling saloon 
with either. The hats already hanging up and in the custody 
of the servants seemed innumerable, and yet the servants had 
no numbers or marks by which to indicate to whom each hat 
belonged, trusting entirely to recollecting the countenance. 
The door of the saloon was then opened ; and the first table 
of gamblers was before us — men young, middle-aged and old, 
with the bloom of youth yet mantling the face and with the 
wrinkles and gray hair of age. This table was a roulette, I be- 
lieve. It was about the size of a common billiard table, and it 
was completely surrounded by a double and triple row of 
persons ; the first row sitting, and the others standing. Among 
those sitting were two or three women of advanced age, and 
moving about the room were several younger, undoubtedly 
Cyprians, possessing considerable personal attractions." 

" Passing into the next saloon through an open door, we 
found a larger table, with players more intent and more numer- 
i ous, where the game turned upon cards. The silver and gold 
spread on the table was a vast amount, and I saw one man, with 
a lip that quivered and a hand that trembled, stake his double 
handful of gold on a single throw, — amounting to many hun- 



38 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



dred dollars. Little wooden rakes or hoes were used to draw 
the money in. The third saloon had a table where the chance 
turned upon dice." 

" It was a scene which I am glad to have witnessed. The 
excitements of gambling have been said to be strong; and I 
can understand how persons have been drawn by its fascinations 
within the terrible maelstrom. They try once for experiment, 
and are seduced by a momentary success, or excited by a loss 
and observing others perhaps winning large sums, they are 
finally absorbed in the whirling vortex. Several of the friends 
that I went with ventured several francs, and alternately lost 
and won. I am free to confess that I felt the temptation but 
I restrained my hand. To-night being the last night, the rooms 
were very full, the gamblers wishing to have their last game. 
We left sometime before midnight, thinking that there might 
be some disturbance at that time, when the transforming wand 
of the law would exercise its power. I, however, walked the 
boulevards, which were splendidly illuminated by the shop win- 
dows till long after midnight, as well as thronged by people ; 
and at twelve o'clock I stood before Frascati's. The people 
were retiring from within, and as the women came out they 
were subjected to the sneers and jeers of a considerable crowd 
who had collected in the street about the gateway. A few of 
the police were present who at once interfered to prevent the 
uproar; and in a few minutes three horsemen rode into the 
crowd, and speedily dispersed them. Such was the last night of 
Frascati, and my first night in Paris." 

During his first weeks in Paris, Sumner pursued indus- 
triously the study of the French language. He had studied it 
while in college and could read it with some accuracy, but he 
had thus far "made little effort to learn to speak it. He re- 
frained from presenting the letters of introduction which he had 
to various persons in Paris and he declined invitations into 
society, until he could use the language. He engaged lodging 
in a quiet part of the city so that lie would have a place where 
he could hear nothing else spoken and so be compelled to talk 
French or have no communication with those about him. Here 
he engaged two teachers with whom he could take lessons and 
converse at different hours of the day. When he went for a 
walk, he would take the child of one of his teachers to talk to ; 
he conversed with people he met by the way. " My rule," he 
wrote, " is to practise upon everybody, to take every opportu- 
nity to speak the language, even if it be but a word, for every 
tinie of trial gives me assurance and also adds to my stock of 
words and phrases." 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 39 

He frequented reading-rooms and public lectures in the 
schools of medicine and law. He also attended theatres, pur- 
chasing at the door a copy of the play so that he could follow 
the performance and thus familiarize himself with the sound 
of the spoken language. Of course he made rapid progress in a 
study pursued so persistently. He had entered France on De- 
cember twenty-eighth and on January twelfth, he recorded in 
his journal, on returning from a lecture at the law school, that 
he could understand nearly all the lecturer said. On February 
fourteenth, after an evening spent in the society of some friends 
he again recorded that all were kind enough to remark that he 
had gained a great deal of French and were astonished at his 
progress. " I just begin to enjoy conversation," said he, " and 
the sensation is delightful." Thenceforward he was frequently 
in society and soon became at ease in the use of the language. 

Whatever furnished self-improvement seemed to have an at- 
traction for him. As he drifted into the dock at Havre, with 
the tide and a gentle wind, he marked the "noble work con- 
trived for the reception of vessels and bearing the inscription 
of ' An. IX Bonaparte 1° Consul ' ", the labor of this great man 
meeting him on the threshold of France. At Paris he ascended 
the monument in the Place Vendome, conceived and built by 
Napoleon, and he recorded in the journal of the day : " It is 
composed of the cannon taken at Austerlitz. There is a genius 
characteristic of Napoleon in making the conquered cannon 
into a monument of victory; and the monument is a most 
beautiful one. It is an imitation of the pillar of Trajan at 
Home of which it preserves the proportions on a scale larger 
by a twelfth." 

He visited the Hospice cles Enfants Trouves, since discon- 
tinued, and of it he wrote : " This is the receptacle of the 
foundlings of Paris ; and upwards of one hundred are left here 
each week, making more than six thousand during the year. 
The argument for such establishments is that they prevent in- 
fanticide by furnishing an asylum for infants. There is a 
little box with a green cushion, about large enough for an 
infant, which opens on the street ; into this the child is put by 
the parent or other person entrusted with it, and at the same 
time the box is turned round, a bell being made to ring by the 
act of turning, and the little thing is received into its new 
asylum. If the infant is well it is very soon put out to nurse 
in the country. There were al)out one hundred and fifty in the 
Hospice. It was a strange sight to see so many children all of 
an age, ranged in rows, in their little cradles. There was a 
large number with sick eyes, and many with other complaints. 



40 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

The curtains of many were drawn aside that I might see them. 
In one cradle I observed that the countenance was pallid and 
the mouth open, and I said to my attendant, ' EUe est morte.' 
The attendant doubted, and thought that she perceived a 
breath from the mouth. I touched the cheek; and it was very 
evident that the poor child was dead, — it was as cold as marble. 
It was melancholy to see even an infant that had died without 
any attendant affectionately watching; and who breathed its 
last, with the curtains of its little cradle closed against all 
sight." 

But the schools and the courts seemed to be the most attract- 
ive places to Sumner and there he spent much of his time, 
after learning the language. During his stay in Paris he at- 
tended about one hundred and fifty lectures, delivered in the 
schools by many of the most eminent teachers in France. His 
journal and letters abound in references to them, describing 
most of the lecturers and their manner and method and his 
estimate of their merits. He usually attended one or two of 
these lectures each forenoon. The manner of giving instruction 
seemed to be of especial interest to him and to obtain informa- 
tion upon this subject he did not confine himself merely to the 
schools of law, his own profession, but those of medicine and 
the sciences were equally to his purpose. The hospitals which 
gave Paris especial advantages for the study of medicine and 
hence attracted the most gifted men in the profession and 
large numbers of students, often found him there, joining a 
class and with it following the professor through the different 
wards, witnessing the surgical operations performed and all 
kinds of diseases treated and explained to the class, which he 
still attended, to hear the lecture following, in the lecture room. 

Everywhere it was work and activity for him from early 
morning until late at night, his bedtime usually being about 
midnight or one a. m. He wrote to Judge Story at the end 
of his first six weeks in Paris : " All my hours are occupied 
far into the watches of the night. So far as labor is con- 
cerned, I should much prefer to be again in my office dealing 
with clients and familiar law books. Travelling with my de- 
sires and determination is no sinecure. I am obliged to hus- 
band all my minutes." 

Having learned the language so he could use it with some 
facility, during the first two months of his stay in Paris, he 
then left his comfortable but retired room in the* Latin quarter 
of the city and found lodging on one of the Boulevards, where 
he could see more of the life of the metropolis. His letters of 
introduction, several in number, not thus far used he now 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 41 

hastened to present. Foelix, the editor of a law magazine and 
the author of a work on the Conflict of Laws, he had been 
brought into contact with by his work upon the Jurist and 
they had exchanged letters before Sumner went to Europe. 
Immediately upon arriving in Paris, he had sought him out. 
He found him living quietly with two maiden sisters, one of 
them well read in the law, able to converse in English and an 
accomplished assistant of her brother in his editorial work. 
Foelix was a Prussian by birth but being banished from his 
native country for political causes, he had come to Paris and 
was naturalized as a citizen. He was enthusiastic upon the 
subject of codification and absorbed in the work of his peri- 
odical. Sumner was frequently in his company, while in Paris, 
and by him he was introduced to many men of eminence and 
otherwise shown much kindness. 

Sumner carried a letter of introduction from Dr. Channing 
to Baron de Gerando, a lecturer in the law school, a Councillor 
of State, a Peer, and also a writer of some note. Lewis Cass 
was then our French IMinister and he and his wife, being 
wealthy, entertained handsomely. Being the bearer of dis- 
patches from his government, Sumner was brought at once into 
contact with him. George Ticknor, who had been Professor 
of French and Spanish Literature at Harvard, while Sumner 
was in College, with his wife, a most accomplished and attract- 
ive woman, was also in Paris during the first .two months of 
Sumner's stay. With all these he dined. He thus enlarged 
his circle of acquaintances. These were his means of access 
to French Society, few enough it would seem. But he had been 
accustomed to the best society which Cambridge and Boston 
afforded and with his ambition to learn and his enthusiastic 
appreciation of all that was pure and good he needed only 
to have an entrance and thenceforward his own merit opened 
the avenues he desired. 

It is interesting to note how he succeeded. He met, upon 
friendly terms. Cousin, the writer upon ethics and philosophy, 
was called upon by him and with him discussed the merits of 
the writers upon kindred subjects in the United States. Sis- 
mondi, the historian, and Pardessus, the writer upon Commer- 
cial and Maritime Law, both received him kindly. He was 
entertained by Demetz, a Judge and afterwards the founder 
of the Reform School for boys at Mettray, where Sumner again 
met him in 1857 and was impressed by his remark that ' he had 
renounced his position as Judge, thinking there was something 
more for him to do than to continue rendering judgments of 
courts ; that he had the happiness of being a Christian and that 



42 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

it was of much more importance to him what the good God 
would think of him than what men thought." 

He was presented to Madame Murat, ex-queen of Naples, the 
sister of Napoleon and widow of his great Captain of Cavalry. 
His journal notes : " She is now at Paris to prosecute a claim 
against the Government for the Palais de I'Elysee Bourbon. 
She is full sixty, but appears to be forty-five. She received me 
quite cordially in her bedroom where there were already three 
or four ladies, and, in the true French style, was pleased to 
compliment me on my French ; when, indeed, I spoke wretch- 
edly, — not speaking as well as I might, for I felt a little awe 
at the presence in which I found myself. She is rather stout, 
with a free, open, pleasant countenance and ready smile. Pres- 
ently some Marquis or other titled man was announced and 
she said, ' C'est terrible' and rose and passed to the salon, 
where she received him. Her countenance had the roundness 
which belonged to Napoleon, but none of his marble-like grav- 
ity." 

Sumner also saw and heard Dupin, the first lawyer of 
France, then President of the Chamber of Deputies, and also 
saw Guizot and Thiers, the historians. The newspapers oc- 
casionally noticed his presence at a trial or a lecture ; and at a 
public banquet he attended, the presiding officer noticed his 
presence in some complimentary remarks, which were applauded 
by the company. 

Sumner spent much of his time during the last two months 
in Paris at the Assemblies and the courts. At the former, 
through the kindness of Gerando, himself a Peer, he was hon- 
ored with a seat in the box in the Chamber of Peers. And in 
the Chamber of Deputies, through the kindness of another 
friend, he was given a seat in the reserved tribune. With 
these opportunities for hearing and seeing, he could closely 
observe the proceedings. He was impressed with the dignity 
and moderation in partisanship which characterized the de- 
bates and the apparent regard for the public welfare. 

But he was still more interested in watching the operation 
of the Code Napoleon in the courts. He was enthusiastic in 
its praise. He observed closely the procedure in the courts. 
At this time he contemplated writing a book on the compar- 
ative procedures in the courts of England, France and the 
United States. He tliought the French bar inferior in learning 
to our own and their literature of the law confined almost 
exclusively to commentaries on their Code and the Eoman law. 
And his impression was that the French nation was behind our 
own in its courts and laws. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 43 

To Judge Story he wrote : " At present I am attending the 
courts. Indeed a French court is a laughable place. To me it 
is a theatre and all the judges, advocates and parties ' merely 
players.' In those particulars in which they have borrowed 
from the English law, they have got hold of about half the 
English principle and forgotten the rest. Thus they have 
juries. These they imported from England ; but with them, 
none of the regulations by which the purity of our verdicts is 
secured. * * * There was nothing like cross-examination; and 
I have reason to believe that this test of truth is entirely un- 
known to the French procedure. All the questions were put by 
the presiding judge, who, however, took no notes of the answers : 
and the questions were general, such as names and times being 
altered would apply to all cases. * * * Papers of all kinds are 
admitted. You will see from these words that the duties of 
the judge and advocate are infinitely abridged ; the lawyer giv- 
ing his chief attention to his pleading and the presiding judge 
putting a series of questions which have been digested before- 
hand. Neither judge nor lawyer is obliged ' to watch the cur- 
rent of the heady fight,' as with us, where almost every word 
of testimony makes its way against the serried objections of 
opposing counsel." 

His journal of March sixteenth and seventeenth contains a 
description of a trial which he attended at Versailles, in the 
company of his friend, Ledru, one of the attorneys for the de- 
fendant : " The prisoner," he wrote, " was a young man of 
eighteen, who was charged with killing his mistress. It seems 
that the two, according to a French fashion, tired of life, agreed 
mutually to kill each other. The pistol of the prisoner took 
effect and the girl was killed ; but hers did not take effect. 
The prisoner then tried to kill himself but was finally arrested 
before he had consummated his project. * * * The first step 
was the reading of the act of accusation or indictment by the 
clerk. The names of all the witnesses were then called. They 
were very numerous and were all sent into an adjoining room. 
Among them was the mother of the prisoner and also the 
mother of the deceased. The prisoner himself was first exam- 
ined, very minutely by the judge and detailed all the important 
circumstances of "his life, his education and of his final com- 
mission of the offence, with which he was charged. He gave all 
the particulars fully. This examination was conducted en- 
tirely by the senior judge. The prisoner cried while telling his 
story, and did not speak loud enough to be distinctly heard by 
the jury. He was then removed from the witness stand. The 
judge next read the examination of the prisoner on his first 



44 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

apprehension, and then the testimony given by physicians at 
the first examination. Witnesses were then introduced one by 
one ; * * * by the judge. The few questions put by counsel on 
either side were through the mouth of the judge; and there 
were not half a dozen during the whole trial, and to, perhaps, 
thirty witnesses. The first set of witnesses proved the previous 
character of the accused ; the second set the same of the de- 
ceased. Next came the doctors and then the persons who found 
the body and the prisoner. Members of the jury asked ques- 
tions when they pleased ; and all or nearly all, had a little 
piece of paper on which to make notes. The examination of 
witnesses was completed the first day, and the court adjourned 
at about five o'clock in the afternoon. The jury separated 
without any injunction not to converse on the subject of the 
trial ; but on the adjournment mingled among the crowd." 

" March seventeenth. At ten o'clock the court again con- 
vened. One of the morning papers contained a full report of 
the doings of yesterday. My friend the counsel of the prisoner, 
anticipating it last night, enjoined upon his servant to bring 
from Paris a dozen copies of the paper containing the report 
to distribute among the jury. I told him he would commit a 
crime, according to English and American law, — ' Embracery ' ; 
but he laughed at the idea. This forenoon the Procureur- 
General first spoke, then the counsel for the prisoner; then 
again the Procureur, and again the counsel for the prisoner. 
I understood that they had a right to speak as many times as 
they chose, the counsel for the prisoner always having the last 
word. In the arguments there was nothing such as I have been 
accustomed to ; everything was difi'erent. The defence was 
theatrical, brilliant, French. The counsel grasped the hand of 
his client, and worked the whole audience into a high pitch of 
excitement. At the close of his argument he called upon his 
client to promise in the face of the court and of God, that, if 
he were restored to liberty, by the verdict of the jury he would 
hasten to precipitate himself upon the tomb of the unfortunate 
girl he had destroyed and pray for forgiveness ; and the pris- 
oner, by way of response, stretched his hand to his counsel, 
who seized it with a strong grasp, saying at once, ' J'ai fini.' 
Women screamed and fainted, strong men yielded, and tears 
flowed down the cheeks of the jury and even the grim coun- 
tenances of the half dozen police, or ge71darm.es wlio sat by tl)e 
side of the prisoner, elevated and within the observation of all 
the audience. The arguments concluded, the judge sitting 
(and the jury sitting) read a very succinct statement of tlie 
case, and the law which bore upon it. This occupied perhaps 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 45 

five or ten minutes. The jury then retired and within less than 
ten minutes returned. The prisoner, in the meantime, had 
been conducted to a room out of the c6urt room. The jury 
rendered their verdict, ' Not Guilty ' ; the prisoner was then 
brought in and the judge communicated the decision to him, 
dismissing him with an impressive admonition. The greatest 
excitement prevailed in the court room when the verdict was 
announced. Women, and men too, cried for joy. So much for 
a French criminal trial ! " 

Tliese things show the employment of Sumner during his 
stay in France. He left May twenty-ninth, 1838, for London. 
He had learned to speak the French language with considerable 
freedom and resolved to study it further in England and make 
it a permanent acquisition. He had seen the courts and schools, 
assemblies and theatres, he had visited the cathedrals and spent 
some time in her famous art galleries and in viewing her pub- 
lic monuments and works. But perhaps the most interestmg 
of all to him was the opportunity he enjoyed of seeing and be- 
coming acquainted with many of her scholars and eminent men. 
With some of them he afterwards corresponded. To the recol- 
lections of this brief life in Paris, he ever after turned, as a 
solace, during his after years of toil. 



CHAPTER VII 

LONDON — THE CLUBS — PARLIAMENT — THE COURTS — JUDGES, 

DENMAN, LITTLEDALE AND OTHERS SOCIETY, MACAULAY, 

CARLYLE, HALLAM — SERVICES FOR FRIENDS — ON THE CIR- 
CUITS — ^BROUGHAM — LONDON AGAIN 

An important part of the life of Snmner is his first visit to 
England. No biography of him would be complete without a 
considerable mention of it. It was different from the visit of 
most Americans to England, so many undertake it from motives 
of simple pleasure and are satisfied with a hurried view of the 
places that are usually seen by tourists. But it must be kept 
in mind that Sumner's purpose was different. He sought solid 
instruction, not mere rest from labor ; and permanent improve- 
ment, not the mere amusement of an idle hour. No part of his 
early education was more fruitful of results. He saw England 
as few young Americans have ever been permitted to see it and 
the taste it gave him of the real life of the eminent Judges 
and barristers and Lords and Commoners, men high in author- 
ity, created with him a different view of office and high position 
from that he had before entertained. It is fortunate that we 
have so full a record of his daily occupations and experiences 
as has been preserved to us by his letters. They give the reader 
delightful glimpses of English private life in places not easily 
accessible to travellers and thus have a value apart from our 
interest in the story of Sumner's life. 

He reached England on the thirty-first day of May, 1838, and 
remained until March twenty-second, 1839, almost a year. 
He came from Calais by way of the river Thames, directly to 
London. " My friends, English and American," he wrote, " ad- 
vised me to take this route, and enter London by the gate of 
the sea ; and I feel that the advice was good. I waked up in 
the morning on board the small steamer and I found her scud- 
ding along the shores of Kent. There were England's chalky 
cliffs full in sight, — steep, beetling, inaccessible, and white. 
Point after point was turned, and Godwin's Sands — where was 
buried the fat demesne of old Duke Godwin, the father of 
Harold — were left on the right. We entered the Thames ; 
passed smiling villages, attractive seats and a neat country on 
the banks and thousands of vessels floating on the river. For 
46 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 47 

eighty miles there was a continuous stream of vessels; and as 
we gradually approached the city then did the magnitude and 
mightiness of this place become evident. For five miles on 
either side the banks were literally lined with ships, their black 
hulls in gloomy array, and their masts in lengthening forests. 
We were landed at London Bridge, and my eyes recognized at 
once ' London's column pointing to the skies,' and, as I drove 
up to lodgings, St. Paul's. When I landed I first supposed 
myself in the centre of the city; but I subsequently found that 
I had hardly reached this point, when, driving two miles, I 
was set down at Tavistock Hotel, in Covent Garden." 

He engaged permanent lodgings near Parliament and the 
Courts. He brought letters of introduction from Judge Story, 
Emerson and others to Justice Vaughan, Carlyle, Wordsworth, 
Lords Jeffrey, Denman and Fitzwilliam and two or three 
other persons of less note. He presented some of these letters 
promptly upon his arrival in London. ^ Of four clubs the Alfred, 
Garrick, Athenffium and Travellers, he was shortly after elected 
an honorary member. This was a qualified membership, en- 
titling him during his temporary residence to the privileges of 
the club. 

Here he mostly took his meals and wrote many letters. He 
was enabled by the persons to whom he bore letters to make 
friends besides those he met at the clubs, until with the broad- 
ening circle, before his departure, he numbered among his ac- 
quaintances most of the great names of the England of that 
day. It must always be remembered that he bore letters to 
only a few of those he met. His letters hardly numbered more 
than a dozen ; while he counted his friends by hundreds. The 
letters could have laid those to whom they were addressed un- 
der only the most moderate obligations to him, an invitation 
to dine or some similar courtesy and then the acquaintance 
need have been pursued no farther. But as shown by his let- 
ters Sumner's invitations to dine were more than he could 
accept. If he had not himself attracted the persons he met, 

i his circle would have been narrow, for he scrupulously re- 
frained from asking for any introductions at all. But it is 
some tribute to his own personality that when he returned to 

I the Continent he was told by those amply able to judge that 
he " had seen more of England and its society not only than 
any foreigner but even than a native." So great an authority 
as Lord Denman, then Chief Justice of England, wrote him 
on leaving : " No one ever conciliated more universal respect 

I and good will." 

n Sumner's earliest acquaintances in London were among the 



48 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

members of the bar. Pleasant glimpses we get of him as he 
describes his visits to Parliament. First in the company of a 
little knot of barristers, he dropped into the Hovise of Com- 
mons one evening about ten o'clock and found that body en- 
gaged in the dulV discharge of routine business, — so dull that, 
?n humorous amazement he records that he actually dropped 
asleep under its Gallery. But he quickly corrects the impres- 
sion this might give of "his interest in that body, by relating his 
next experience, when, through the courtesy of one of its mern- 
bers, he was admitted to the floor of the House and with this 
advantage sat through a night's debate on the Irish Municipal 
Corporation Bill. 

He thoughtfully estimated the successive speakers. There 
was the polished, graceful, self-possessed, candid, or apparently 
candid, Peel, with rather a want of power; and the diminu- 
tive, rickety Lord John Eussell, wriggling around, playing with 
his hat, seemingly unable to dispose of his hands or his feet, 
his voice small and thin, but notwithstanding all this a house 
of upwards of five hundred members, hushed to catch his 
slightest accents. You listened and you felt that you heard a 
man of mind, of thought and of moral elevation. Then came 
Shell, breaking forth with one of his splendid bursts, full of 
animation in the extreme, in gesture and glow like Sturgis, in 
voice like John Randolph, screaming and talking in octaves 
and yet the House listening and cheering. Sugden, the author 
of the " Law of Vendors ", authority wherever, the world over, 
the Common Law finds a home, tried to speak, but his voice for 
the whole half hour he was on the floor was drowned by calls 
for the question and the uproar of the members and the Gal- 
lery, so that Sumner heard not a word he uttered. Then the 
accomplished O'Connell, with his rich voice, more copious and 
powerful than Clay's, charmed the House to silence. Campbell, 
afterwards Lord Chief Justice was there. And Follett spoke, 
already Sumner's friend, and the leader of the English bar, 
Sumner thought, better than all the rest. Was it partiality for 
his friend or his profession that made him think so ? Sumner 
was attached to both. 

He was impressed with what he saw of the English bar. He 
was introduced by the Chief Justice, Lord Denman, to whom 
he brought a letter of introduction. He was at once received 
among them upon friendly terms and was impressed with what 
seemed to him the unusual freedom of their intercourse, never 
addressing one another with the prefix " Mr." but always sim- 
ply, " Follett ", " Campbell ", " Wilde ", dining together at the 
Inns of Court, many of them lodging there, frequenting the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 49 

clubs together and travelling in company on the Circuit. They 
appeared to Sumner like a well-regulated family, a band of 
brothers. It was to them that he owed his admission to the 
clubs. Lodging among them, a well-read lawyer himself, well 
educated, accustomed to good society and its amenities, eager 
to learn of their courts and to know those who presided and 
practised there and able to impart a similar knowledge of our 
own courts, with his youth and versatility he easily became 
an accession to their society. He thus found opportunity to 
see them in public and in private. He knew most of the Judges 
and was invited to dine with them and repeatedly, during 
trials, occupied, by their invitations, a seat at their side on the 
bench. The relations of the bench and the bar were more 
cordial than he had been accustomed to see. Each seemed 
more the helper of the other. Good-will, graciousness and 
kindness prevailed between them. To him, as he wrote, noth- 
ing could be imagined more pleasant than the life of an Eng- 
lish Judge, with the English bar always standing between him 
and the litigants to soften the asperities of his position. 

The practice of the law had its humorous side. Straying into 
the committee room of the House of Lords one morning, Sum- 
ner found several attorneys busy examining witnesses as to the 
feasibility of a proposed railroad. He at once recognized Sir 
Charles Witherell by the careless and slovenly dress, by which 
he had repeatedly heard him described. The witness was a 
plain farmer also apparently careless of his appearance. The 
question was asked, by Sir Charles, whether the proposed 
road would not do considerable business in carrying articles of 
fashion. " Well, as to articles of fashion. Sir Charles, I do not 
think they much concern either you or me," was the quick re- 
sponse. The committee laughed heartily and Sir Charles joined 
them. 

To Judge Story he wrote of the courts and judges and of the 
bar. " Most of the judges go to court in the morning on horse- 
back, with a groom on another horse behind ; and they are 
notorious as being very poor riders — though the fate of Twys- 
den has been latterly unknown, he having fallen from his horse 
on the route and then declared that no Lord Chancellor should 
ever make him mount again. In winter the court opens at ten 
o'clock ; and they continue sitting till between four and five, — 
often till seven. Between one and two they leave the bench and 
retire to their room, where they eat a sandwich and drink a 
glass of wine from a phial ; this takes five or ten minutes only. 
The judges have not separate seats, as with us ; but all sit on 
one long red-cushioned seat, — which may with propriety be 



50 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

called the bench, in contradistinction to the chair, which is the 
seat of a professor. I shall begin with the common law, and, 
of course, with the Queen's Bench." 

" You know Lord Denman, Chief Justice of the Queen's 
Bench, intellectually better than I; but you do not know his 
person, his voice, his manner, his tone, — all every inch the 
judge. He sits the admired impersonation of the law. He is 
tall and well made with a justice-like countenance : his voice 
and the gravity of his manner, and the generous feeling with 
which he castigates everything departing from the strictest line 
of right conduct, remind me of Greenleaf more than any other 
man I have ever known. I wish you could have listened to 
Lord D., as I did on the circuit, when he sentenced some of 
the vicious and profligate wretches brought before him. His 
noble indignation at crime showed itself so naturally and 
simply that all our bosoms were warmed by it ; and I think his 
words must have gone like iron into even the stony hearts of 
the prisoners. And yet I have seen this constitutional warmth 
find vent on occasions when it should have been restrained ; it 
was directed against the Attorney-General, who was pressing 
for delay in a certain matter with a pertinacity rather peculiar 
to him. Lord D. has to a remarkable degree, the respect of 
the bar; though they very generally agree that he is quite an 
ordinary lawyer. He is honest as the stars, and is willing to 
be guided by the superior legal learning of Patterson. In con- 
versation, he is gentle and bland; I have never seen him ex- 
cited. His son, who will be the future Lord Denman, is what 
is here called a nice person." 

" Littledale is rather advanced in life ; I should call him 
seventy. He has the reputation of great book-learning ; but he 
seems deficient in readiness or force, both on the bench and in 
society. I heard old Justice Allen Park say that Littledale 
could never get a conviction in a case where there was any ap- 
peal to the feelings. He has not sat in banc this term, but hag 
held the Bail Court." 

" Patterson is the ablest lawyer on the Queen's Bench, — some 
say the first in all the courts. As I have already written you, 
he is unfortunately deaf, to such a degree as to impair his use- 
fulness, though by no means to prevent his participating in the 
labors of the bench. He is deeply read and has his learning at 
command. His language is not smooth and easy, either in 
conversation or on the bench ; but it is always significant, and to 
the purpose. In person he is rather short and stout, and with 
a countenance that seems to me heavy and gross ; though I find 
that many of the bar think it quite otherwise. I heard Warren 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 51 

— author of " Ten Thousand a Year ' and ' Law Studies ' — 
say that it was one of the loveliest faces he ever looked upon; 
perhaps he saw and admired the man in his countenance. I 
have heard many express themselves about him with the greatest 
fondness. He has a very handsome daughter." 

" Turn next to the Common Pleas. There is, first. Lord 
Chief Justice Tindal. He sits over his desk in court, taking 
notes constantly, — occasionally interposing a question, but in 
the most quiet manner. His eyes are large and rolling; in 
stature he is rather short. His learning, patience and fidelity 
are of the highest order. He is one of the few judges who 
study their causes on their return home. His manner is sin- 
gularly bland and gentle, and is, perhaps, deficient in decision 
and occasional sternness. Sergeant Wilde is said to exercise a 
very great influence over him ; indeed scandal attributes to him 
some of the ' power behind the throne greater than the throne '. 
Upon Tindal devolves the decision of all interlocutory matters 
in his court, the other judges seldom interposing with regard 
to them, or, indeed, appearing to interest themselves about 
them. He is one of the kindest men that ever lived. 

" Then comes Vaughan. He became a sergeant sometime in 
the last century and was the youngest ever known. At one 
period his practice was greater, perhaps, than of anybody 
ever knowai in the courts. His income was some fifteen thou- 
sand pounds. About 1820 his leg was broken very badly by a 
cartman, who ran against him as he was driving in a gig. After 
being confined to his bed for three months, he at length ap- 
peared in court on the shoulders of his servants; and had a 
hole cut in the desk before him for his leg ; and by permission 
of the court addressed the jury sitting. His business at once 
returned to him. In 1820, he was made a judge, it is said at 
the bar, by the direct command of George IV, who was moved 
to it by his favorite physician. Sir Henry Halford ; which gave 
occasion to the saying in the bar benches that ' Vaughan was 
made a judge by prescription '. He is reputed to have the 
smallest possible allowance of law for a judge ; but he abounds 
in native" strength and sagacity, and in freedom of language. 
With him the labors of the judge cease the moment he quits 
the bench. I doubt if he ever looks into a cause at chambers. 
In his study he once showed me four guns, and told me with 
great glee that, by sending a note to Sergeant Wilde, he per- 
suaded him not to make any motion on a certain day, and got 
the Court of Common Pleas adjourned at twelve o'clock; he at 
once went fifteen miles into the country, and before four o'clock 
had shot a brace of pheasants, the learned judge sitting on 



52 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

horseback when he fired, as from his lameness he was unable 
to walk. He is fond of Shakespeare and often have we inter- 
changed notes during a long argument of Follett or Wilde, 
while I was sitting by the side of the latter in the Sergeants' 
row, the burden of which has been some turn or expression 
from the great bard, the crowd supposing he was actively tak- 
ing minutes of the argument, while he was inditing some- 
thing pleasant for me to which I never failed to reply. His 
present wife when young was eminently beautiful, so that Sir 
Thomas Lawrence used her portrait in some imaginary pieces. 
He lias several children, one of whom, his eldest son, graduated 
at the ITniversity with distinguished honor, and has been 
recently called to the bar: I think him a young man full of 
promise. Vaughan though not a man of book-learning himself 
respects it in others." 

Sumner thus describes the trial of a case before the House 
of Lords : " I have not spoken of arguments before the Lords. 
I have attended one and sat in conversation with the Attorney- 
General, Lushington, and Clark, the reporter. The Chancellor 
sat at the table below the woolsack ; the benches of the Lords 
were bare ; only two unfortunate members, to whom by rotation 
it belonged to tend-out in this manner, were present in order 
to constitute the quorum. These happened to be, as Dr. Lush- 
ington explained to me, Lord Sudely, who is quite skilled in 
architecture, and Lord Mostyn, who is a great fox-hunter. 
There they sat from ten o'clock in the morning till four in the 
afternoon, with their legs stretched on the red benches and 
endeavoring by all possible changes of posture to wear away the 
time. The Attorney-General told me that ' it would be thought 
quite indecorous in either of them to interfere by saying a 
word '. You have asked about the character of the judges, I 
should not omit that of the Lord Chancellor (Cottenham). He 
did not once open his lips, I think, from the beginning to the 
end of the hearing. I am astonished at the concurrent expres- 
sions of praise which I hear from every quarter. He has been 
all his days a devoted student of the law; and I believe of 
nothing else." 

Perhaps it was after a day before this court, and having in 
mind such judges as Lord Sudely and Lord Mostyn, that an 
eminent English barrister once told Sumner that he always 
drank porter before an argument in order to bring his under- 
standing down to a level with the judges. 

Sumner breakfasted with Lord Chief Justice Denman, whose 
invitations to dinner, owing to other engagements, he was 
obliged to decline. He dined with Lord Wharncliffe. He at- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 53 

tended a great ball at Lord Fitzwilliam's, starting from his 
lodgings at eleven o'clock in the evening, but the press of car- 
riages was so great there, that he did not reach the door until 
one. There was the elite of England's nobility. He remarked 
that the only untitled name he heard was that of the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, who bore the rather suggestive one, Spring 
Eice. It seemed as if he had fallen in fairyland, with the 
whirl of beautiful women and well-dressed men about him, 
Lord and Lady, waiting as submissively as himself to be pre- 
sented. He attended a collation by the Bishop of London and 
was asked by the Bishop to take wine with him. He was in- 
vited to the banquet of the Lord Mayor of London and his 
health was proposed by the lafe Lord Mayor, in a compli- 
mentary speech, to which he made an impromptu reply, draw- 
ing cheers from his audience and afterwards congratulations 
from his friends. He attended the coronation of Queen 
Victoria, with its gorgeousness and suggestions of feudal glory 
and was at a grand fete given in honor of the event at Lans- 
downe House. 

The invitations to these places were all voluntary. Sumner 
as scrupulously refrained from asking for them as he had for 
introductions. 

The numerous invitations he received enabled him to meet 
and, in many instances, to know well men of wider reputation 
than most of those who bore the English titles. His letters, 
especially to Hillard, abound in descriptions of the literary 
people he saw. It was in the great names of English Literature, 
whose writings they had discussed at the meetings of the Five 
of Clubs and in their private walks and talks that Hillard was 
most interested. He wanted to hear from Sumner how these 
men looked and talked and acted, his estimate of them from a 
close point of view. The glimpses Sumner gives us of them 
are delightful ; Bulwer, radiant with jewellery and incased in 
ruffles, with his high-heeled boots and flaming blue cravat, 
strutting about the club ; Pool, the author of " Paul Pry ", sit- 
ting very quietly, eating moderately, using few but choice 
words, often hitting off clever things ; Lockhart, the son-in-law 
and biographer of Sir Walter Scott, fretting about, saying lit- 
tle and still less tliat was worth remembering. He saw the 
banker-poet Eogers, often in company, but never liked him till 
he breakfasted with him at his ovm home. Then he found him, 
as a converser, unique, the world not giving him credit enough 
for his great and peculiar power, in this line; terse, epigram- 
matic, dry, infinitely to the point, full of wisdom, sarcasm and 
cold humor, saying the most ill-natured things and doing the 



54 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

best; to be alone with him, enjoying his paintings and rare 
art treasures, and still more his frank talk of the society and 
poets and poetry of the quarter of a century that had passed 
before him, he alone of all unchanged, — " seldom ", he adds, 
" have I enjoyed myself more ". 

Here is his first glimpse of Macaulay, the historian, whom he 
afterwards met frequently: " During the dinner at Lord Lans- 
downe's, I was addressed across the table, which was a large 
round one, by a gentleman with black hair and round face, 
with regard to the United States. The question was put, with 
distinctness and precision, and in a voice a little sharp and 
above the ordinary key. I did not know the name of the gentle- 
man for some time, till by and by, I heard him addressed by 
some one, as ' Macaulay '. I at once asked Lord Shelburne, who 
sat on my right, if that was .Thomas Babington Macaulay, just 
returned from India, and was told that it was. At the table 
we had considerable conversation, and on passing into the draw- 
ing-room it was renewed. He is now nearly or about forty, 
rather short, and with a belly of unclassical proportions. His 
conversation was rapid, brilliant and powerful; by far the best 
of any in the company, though Mr. Senior was there and 
several others of no mean powers. I expect other opportunities 
of meeting him. He says that he shall abandon politics, not 
enter Parliament, and addict himself entirely to literature." 

Sumner carried a letter from Ealph Waldo Emerson to 
Thomas Carlyle. He wrote to Hillard : " I heard Carlyle lec- 
ture the other day ; he seemed like an inspired boy ; truths and 
thoughts that made one move on the benches came from his 
apparently unconscious mind, couched in the most grotesque 
style, and yet condensed to a degree of intensity, if I may so 
write. He is the Zerah Colburn of thought; childlike in man- 
ner and feeling, and yet reaching by intuition, points and 
extremes of ratiocination which others could not so well ac- 
complish after days of labor, if indeed they ever could. I have 
received a very kind note inviting me to pass an evening with 
him, but another engagement prevented my accepting." 

Later, he wrote : " Another morning was devoted to Carlyle. 
His manners and his conversation are as unformed as his style 
and yet, withal, equally full of genius. In conversation he 
piles up thought upon thought, and imagining upon imagin- 
ing, till the erection seems about to topple down with its weight. 
He lives in great retirement, I fear almost in poverty. To him 
London and its mighty maze of society are nothing; neither 
he nor his writings are known. Carlyle said the strangest thing 
in the history of literature ^vas his receipt of fifty pounds from 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 55 

America, on account of his ' French Revolution ' which had 
never yielded him a farthing in Europe and probably never 
would. I am to meet Leigh Hunt at Carlyle's." 

" I have often," he wrote, " met Hallam, the historian, at the 
Athenaeum. I was standing the other day by the side of a 
pillar, so that I was not observed by him, when he first met 
Phillips, the barrister who visited America during the last 
summer; and he cried out, extending his hand at the same 
time : ' Well, you are not tattooed really ! ' Hallam is a plain, 
frank man, but is said to be occasionally quite testy and rest- 
less. Charles Babbage, himself one of the most petulant men 
that ever lived, told me that Hallam once lay awake all night 
till four o'clock in the morning, hearing the chimes and the 
watchman's hourly annunciation of them. When he heard the 
cry, ' Four o'clock and a cloudy morning ', he leaped from his 
bed, threw open his window, and, hailing the terrified watch- 
man, cried out : ' It is not four o'clock ; it wants five minutes 
of it ! ' and after this volley at once fell asleep." 

Again : " A few evenings ago I dined with Hallam. He is a 
person of plain manners, rather robust, and wears a steel watch- 
guard over his waistcoat. He is neither fluent nor brilliant in 
conversation; but is sensible, frank and unafl:ected. After 
dinner we discussed the merits of the dilferent British histo- 
rians, Gibbon, Hume and Robertson. Of course Gibbon was 
placed foremost." 

" Said Barry Cornwall to me yesterday while he held m his 
hand a lovely little boy : ' Have you any such beautiful pictures 
as this?' What fine sentiment comes from married folks! 
And, indeed, a lovely child is a beautiful picture. I loved the 
I poet more after he had put me that close question. His gentle 
countenance, which seemed all unequal to the energy which 
dictated ' The sea ! The sea ! ' was filled with joyous satisfac- 
tion and love ; and he hugged the boy to his bosom." 

And so these charming sketches run on ; many of them show 

the good heart of Sumner, revealed in the comment he makes 

upon what he saw. They all show a tender regard for his 

friends. He was enjoying England himself, but he was care- 

\ ful by long and almost daily letters to share the pleasures and 

; profits of his trip with those who had sympathized with his 

' ambition to see these countries or had aided him to it in a more 

substantial way. Judge Story, his ever faithful friend and 

mentor and his excellent wife, both loving him hardly less than 

their own son, Professor and Mrs. Greenleaf, scarcely behind 

them in affectionate regard, Hillard and Longfellow and 

Lieber, his early and constant friends, as well as the members 



56 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

of his own fcamily, all had abundant proof of this kind of his 
unchanging affection for them. 

His letters from England alone, that have been preserved, 
cover about one hundred and forty closely printed octavo pages. 
And some others that are known to have been written have not 
been found. They were all written, in the abandon of friend- 
ship, with the freshness and enthusiasm of youth, and with no 
view to publication. He never reclaimed any of them and his 
only care seemed to be lest they should fall into unfriendly 
hands and the freedom with which they were written should 
be abused. Those who received them handed them to others 
and by this means they were read by a wide circle of friends. 

While in London he was useful to some of his friends in 
other ways. Francis Lieber had just completed his " Political 
Ethics " and was desirous of having it published in England. 
Sumner undertook to accomplish this for him and succeeded in 
making a satisfactory arrangement. He also volunteered to 
distribute copies of it to influential friends of his own and 
to have it reviewed in some of the leading periodicals. He pro- 
cured a publisher for Judge Story's " Equity Pleadings " and 
had Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isabella ", then just issued, 
reviewed and sought in other ways to gain for it a 
favorable reception in England and Scotland. All these serv- 
ices were gratefully acknowledged ; and his efforts for a recogni- 
tion of Prescott, whom he had not known before, was the com- 
mencement of a lasting friendship. 

His letters abound in evidence of his interest in affairs at 
home. In his quiet hours there often passed over him thoughts 
of his deserted law office and of the trains of business cut short 
which seemed a little while before to be bearing him on to fame 
and fortune. He wrote of Dane Hall and the Law School, the 
hardly confessed hope of his future, of the pretty firesides in 
Cambridge, where he had always found a welcome seat, where 
rare intelligence presided and " the merry laugh went round ". 
Whatever interested these friends interested him, — far away, — 
their marriages, the births of their children or the death of one 
of them. How he sorrowed with them ! Hillard's only child 
had died, a little boy, two years old. The news reached Sumner 
a month later after an all-night's ride from Holkham to Lon- 
don. He could not rest till he had written. The joyous letters 
he had sent to him, all unconscious of his sorrow, how they 
would seem to flout his grief. He tenderly sought to smooth 
away the sorrow of the parents, with thoughts of the society 
there would be to them, of the richest kind, in the cherished 
image of the dear one whose body had been taken away, his own 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 57 

pure spirit mingling with the goodness and greatness that had 
gone before, he escaping the toils and trials, which would, per- 
haps, if he had lived to encounter them, have made him mourn 
that he was born ; and he reminded them of the gratitude they 
owed to God for casting such a sunbeam across their path even 
though followed by the darkness of their present sorrow. 

Why should Sumner's friends not love him, with all his kind- 
ness and consideration for them? Their letters to him were 
full of congratulations upon the success he was everywhere 
meeting. They felt themselves honored in the representative 
they had abroad and they wrote him to go on and see every- 
thing he could and then come home and in the quiet walks of 
his former days, tell them all about his Journey. They planned 
his future for him, in the office and in the school, both he and 
they little thinking how different it would be. Underneath all 
the hope expressed, there was a lurking fear that he might be 
spoiled, by all this novelty and excitement, for the practical, 
work-a-day life of home. But he went on following the present 
with all his ardor, delving into the rich mines of English life 
and story, content to take care of the future when it came. 

He had invitations from the judges to attend them upon all 
the circuits. The social season of London was closing, the 
people of wealth and position from all parts of the kingdom, 
who habitually come there during the winter months, to enjoy 
some recreation away from their estates, amid the gayeties of 
the metropolis, were departing. A number of them invited 
Sumner to visit their country seats. With Parliament and the 
courts closed, the theatres empty, the clubs deserted, his friends 
gone and the hot season of the year at hand, the city could have 
few attractions, while the country with its pure air, with per- 
sons and places full of interest easily drew him away. 

He left London on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1838, and 
remained away till the fourth day of November following. The 
intervening months were as industriously employed as any 
since he had left home. His route lay westward into Corn- 
wall, thence iSTorth, through the western counties, into Scot- 
land, spending three weeks there and a week in Ireland, and 
returning to London from the North through the eastern 
counties. On the way he was introduced to many people of 
eminence and was entertained at some of the most considerable 
I houses of the kingdom. 

The season of the year was the best that could be chosen for 
this trip. As he started away, the trees were in full leaf, the 
meadows and cultivated gardens were green and fields, whiten- 
ing for the harvest, were nodding in the sunshine. The journey 



5g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

was performed mostly by coach and private conveyance, over 
excellent roads. The varying landscape he passed was beauti- 
ful. The occasional ruggedness of the scenery, everywhere 
softened by centuries of the civilizing work of man, the fertile 
farms and broad estates, never monotonous, seldom mounting 
to the ruggedness of a hill or mountain, but rolling quietly 
away; the busy marts of trade and manufactures, interspersed 
between with neat country villages ; grim, castled halls frown- 
ing from some eminence; pretty cottages, with prim little 
gardens hedged in, and well kept out-buildings, peeping out of 
every shaded dell; still flov/ing rivers winding through quiet 
fields, and around all the white-capped waves of the ocean, dash- 
ing themselves against a rugged and rocky coast, altogether 
made one of the most beautiful pictures that the human eye 
could witness. 

Sumner went first to Guildford where he met the Home Cir- 
cuit and dined with Lord Denman and the bar, then to Win- 
chester and Salisbury, stopping at the latter place to see the 
cathedral. He visited Old Sarum and Stonehenge, peculiar 
relics of antiquity, supposed to be remains of an ancient temple 
and altar of the Druids. Thence he went to Exeter and then 
to Bodmin, where he met the Western Circuit. At Bodmin he 
found Follett and Wilde, two leaders of the London bar, there 
on business. Together with Sumner they were the guests of 
the bar, at a banquet where his health was proposed and he 
made an impromptu response. He saw much of these two 
men in England and was entertained by both of them. They 
deserve more than a passing notice. 

William Webb Follett was then only forty years of age, 
youthful in appearance and manner, and a most lovable person. 
As a speaker he was fluent, graceful and distinct with an 
agreeable voice; uniformly bland, courteous and conversational 
in style. He seemed to have a genius for the law ; in stating a 
legal proposition or arguing a case he was at home. Yet, as 
was unusual, he was equally successful in that very different 
kind of oratory, parliamentary eloquence. Calls for him were 
frequent upon the floor of the House and he was listened to 
with marked attention. He had carefully mastered the ele- 
ments of the law, but his knowledge of other subjects, politics 
as well, seemed to be superficial. His practice at this time was 
large; Sumner thought he had an annual income of fifteen 
thousand pounds and it was generally allowed that he would be 
made Lord Chancellor upon the accession of his party to power, 
so great was his popularity. But he died at the early age of 
forty-seven, having been successively a Member of Parliament, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 59 

Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. Had his health been 
spared he would doubtless have reached the highest places in his 
profession. He was a singularly kind, considerate and obliging 
man and these traits contributed greatly to his success. Sumner 
received many courtesies from him and was attached to him. 

Thomas Wilde, the other of these friends, was then fifty-six 
years of age. Sumner wrote of him : " After his entrance to the 
profession, he was guilty of one of those moral delinquencies 
which are so severely visited in England. I have heard the 
story, but have forgotten it. In some way he took advantage 
of a trust relation, and purchased for himself. He was at once 
banished from the Circuit table. A long life of laborious in- 
dustry, attended by the greatest success, has not yet placed him 
in communication with the bar ; and it is supposed that he can 
never hope for any of those offices by which talent and success 
like his are usually rewarded. I think it, however, not im- 
probable that the government, in their anxiety to avail them- 
selves of his great powers, may forget the past; but society 
will not. He does not mingle with the bar,— or if he does, it 
is with downcast eyes and with a look which seems to show 
that he feels himself out of place. He is the most industrious 
person at the English bar ; being at his chambers often till two 
o'clock in the morning, and at work again by six o'clock. His 
arguments are all elaborated with the greatest care; and he 
comes to court with a minute of every case that can bear upon 
the matter in question. In the Common Pleas he is supreme, 
and is said to exercise a great influence over Lord Chief Justice 
Tindal. He once explained to me the secret of his success ; he 
said that he thoroughly examined all his cases and, if he saw 
that a case was bad, in the strongest language he advised its 
adjustment ; if it was good he made himself a perfect master of 
it. He is engaged in every cause in the Common Pleas. In 
person he is short and stout, and has a vulgar face. His voice 
is not agreeable; but his manner is singularly energetic and 
intense,— reminding me in this respect of Webster more than 
any other person at the English bar. If you take this into con- 
sideration in connection with his acknowledged talents and his 
persevering industry, you will not be at a loss to account for 
his great success. 1 have been told that he was once far from 
fluent; but now he expresses himself with the greatest ease. 
His language has none of the charms of literature; but it is 
correct, expressive, and to the purpose. In manner, to his 
friends, he seems warm and affable. To me he has shown much 
volunteer kindness. I have conversed with him on some points 
of professional conduct, and found him entertaining very ele- 



60 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

vated views. He told me that he should never hesitate to cite 
a case that bore against him, if he thought court and the 
opposite counsel were not aware of it at the moment." 

Notwithstanding the prediction of the fatal consequences of 
Wilde's early mistake, his talents and industry did at last reap 
their merited reward; After he was fifty-eight years of age, he 
became successively Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Chief 
Justice and finally Lord Chancellor ; and was then raised to the 
Peerage. 

From Bodmin, Sumner passed farther into Cornwall to visit 
the High Sheriif at his castle, and then he returned to the 
coast, to Plymouth, to view the spot, always of interest to him 
as the point of departure of the Pilgrims on their passage to 
the bleak shores of Massachusetts; now one of the great naval 
arsenals of the kingdom. Here a barge was placed at his dis- 
posal, so that he could visit the ships in port and an officer was 
also detailed by the Commander of the largest vessel, to show 
him the shipyards. 

From Plymouih, through Devon, he passed to Taunton in 
Somerset, where he spent two days, the guest of Sydney Smith, 
master of English wit and literature, at his pretty cottage. 
Combe Flory. He had met Smith in London, where they be- 
came friendly, and he was invited to visit him at home. Here, 
with this prince of conversation, was entertainment. On leav- 
ing, his host gave him a book to remind him of his visit and 
also a list of his essays published in the Edinburgh Eeview 
and elsewhere, characterizing the essays as containing " liberal 
sentiment expressed always with some wit ". Sumner urged 
Hillard to publish an American edition of these essays. Such 
an edition has since been issued. 

Sumner met the Western Circuit again at Wells and was 
there the guest of the bar. From Wells he went to Bristol and 
Chester. Here Justice Vaughan, who was then holding court 
called him to his side on the bench. From Chester he went to 
Liverpool, where Baron Alderson, of the Northern Circuit 
was holding the assizes. He had never met him, but he brought 
letters of introduction from Justice Vaughan, Lord Brougham 
and others. 

There has been frequent opportunity in these pages to note 
the friendly relation of members of the English bar to each 
other. There seemed to exist among them the tie of a guild or 
fraternity, an introduction to whose circle gave to the recipient 
whatever of courtesy and kindness the membership could con- 
tribute. Sumner met many men of other professions in Eng- 
land to whom he was indebted for kindness, but the narration of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 61 

his journey shows that he was under the greatest obligation to 
the bar. The members seemed to vie with one another, while he 
was on the Circuits, in passing him on from place to place, and 
in opening each avenue of interest to him, toasting and feast- 
ing and introducing him, though knowing him only as an 
untitled member of the bar. They recognized in him a quiet, 
self-respecting, appreciative American of their profession. 

The same tie exists among lawyers in the United States, but 
this kindly feeling is not so prevalent. It is to be regretted 
that in America so little time is given to the amenities of the 
profession. There is so much " vim, vigor and victory " and so 
little of quiet, friendly communion; the hustler fills so large 
a place and the equally industrious man, who often does more 
and better work, with less noise and friction, attracts so little 
notice ! How the homely wisdom of poor Oliver Goldsmith is 
to be envied, going off with some friends, to the green fields 
with a biscuit in his pocket, to spend a " shoemaker's holi- 
day", in the shade of a tree or on the bank of some stream. 
If it were to obtain oftener among members of the bar how 
many of the hard places it might soften and how much of bit- 
terness and needless asperity it might remove! Conilict is an 
essential part of the business of the profession, but much of the 
bitterness it engenders is unnecessary. 

Sumner found no end of good cheer in Liverpool. The first 

day he attended a banquet given by the city authorities to the 

judges ; the second day he dined with the judges to meet the 

isar ; the third with the Mayor of the city ; the fourth with the 

bar. " I have a thousand things to say to you," he wrote to 

Judge Story, "about the law, circuit life and the English 

judges. I iiave seen more of all of them probably than ever 

fell to the lot of a foreigner." At a banquet in Liverpool, in 

responding to a toast proposed by Baron Alderson, he attracted 

the attention of Robert Ingham, the Member of Parliament for 

South Shields, and he was invited to become his guest at his 

town and country homes, during the sitting at Newcastle of 

the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Thither we went on the twenty-second of August, 1838. On a 

I headland jutting out upon the German Ocean, with its waves 

I lashing the rocky coast, stood Westhoe Hall, the seat of his host. 

j It overlooked Tynemouth Priory, whose sturdy but graceful 

1 arches were the witnesses of the centuries since the Conquest. 

I Robert Ingham was one of the purest and best of men, a 

\ Member of Parliament for a quarter of a century, not brilliant, 

' but a sensible, conscientious representative of the people. 

I Sumner attended the meetings of the British Association as his 



Q2 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

guest during the week they continued. The intervals of the 
meetings were pleasantly spent with Ingham and his friends. 
As showing the style of English country life, his host invited 
fourteen gentlemen to meet Sumner and to spend the evening 
at Westhoe Hall and there they all remained the whole night. 

During the banquet at the close of the meetings of the As- 
sociation, he was called out by the President, the Bishop of 
Durham, proposing the health of the distinguished foreigners 
present and singling him out by some complimentary remarks. 
He responded in a short speech, which was reported in the New- 
castle papers. It was afterwards copied into the Boston papers. 
Thus in other ways the news of his success abroad reached the 
Boston public. 

At the adjournment of the Association, by the invitation of 
the Bishop of Durham, he accompanied him in his carriage to 
his house, Auckland Castle. This is the seat of the most power- 
ful Bishop of England. He remained there two days and then 
went to visit the Recorder of Newcastle at Harperly Park. 
Here he spent two days more, riding with the young ladies on 
horseback, enjoying excursions over the country and the visits 
in the neighborhood, — delightful days, when all were young — 
with spirits buoyant and happy and care thrown away. They 
entertained him with their tales of the chase and of their mad 
rides and the leaps of their horses over fences and ditches, in 
the fox-hunts common in the locality. His own curiosity was 
easily aroused to attempt the sport himself. 

Two days more he spent with the Member of Parliament for 
Northumberland, at Oakwood, on the Tyne, twelve miles from 
Newcastle and then he went to shoot grouse with Archdeacon 
Scott on the moors of Whitfield Eectory. The venerable Arch- 
deacon loaned him a hunting shirt and a pair of rough shoes 
and thus clad, in his company, for the clergy in England are 
skilled in the sports of the field, they started out for a hunt on 
the moors and fells. The dogs started several coveys of grouse 
and partridges, but Sumner and the Archdeacon maintained 
that both their guns missed fire and, hence only, they failed, 
through the whole day, to bring down a single bird. This mis- 
chance is not to be wondered at, in Sumner's case, of whom it 
is not recorded that he ever shot a gun before, but it is damag- 
ing to the reputation for sportsmanship of a clergyman of the 
Established Church. It is not mentioned that the Archdeacon 
killed anything, but it is recorded with due solemnity, in the 
Gamebook of Whitfield Rectory, tliat Sumner killed one hare. 

From Whitfield Rectory, on the Archdeacon's horse and at- 
tended by his groom, Sumner splashed, through showers of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 63 

rain over the moors and valleys of Northumberland, to 
Brougham Hall. This was the country seat of Henry, Lord 
Brougham, former Lord Chancellor of England. Joseph Parkes 
had introduced them in London and the acquaintance which 
followed, renewed again in 1857, was a pleasant one to Sumner. 
He was asked to visit Brougham Hall, when on the Circuits, 
and reached there, wet and tired, about the middle of the 
afternoon of September sixth. As soon as he made known the 
discomforts of his trip, he was shown to his apartments and en- 
joyed a complete change of clothing. Who has not felt the 
warmth and glow that dry clothes and comfortable enter- 
tainment bring over one's spirit, after such a trip? The very 
fatigue of the journey seemed to give way to a pleasurable 
sensation of health and vigor, produced by the exercise of 
riding in the open air. 

The evening, and the next day, Sumner spent with Lord 
Brougham. His mother was still living and had her home 
with him. She was an interesting lady, eighty-six years of 
age and a niece of the historian Kobertson. Lord Brougham 
was one of the marked men of his generation. 

He was born in Edinburgh in 1779, of an ancient Westmore- 
land family and was educated at the high school and uni- 
versity of his native city. Before graduation he received high 
credit for proficiency in scientific studies. As a boy he was 
very ambitious and of great activity both of mind and body, 
but was inclined to be more diffuse than exact, in his studies. 
He read law and commenced to practise in Edinburgh and, by 
his earnestness and vigorous fighting propensities, soon became 
prominent, especially in the defence of a class of cases then 
very common, suits for libel. He was one of the founders of 
the Edinburgh Eeview and continued for twenty years to be 
one of its regular contributors. He early removed to London 
and there reached the highest rank in his profession. He be- 
came Lord Chancellor in 1830 and continued to hold the office 
until 1834. He died in 1868, eighty-nine years of age. 

He was a man of great concentration and industry, of re- 
markable attainments and besides the work of his profession 
and his office was the author of several books of permanent 
value. But it is as an orator and a member of the House of 
Lords that he is best remembered. He advocated the abolition 
of slavery and the dissolution of the Canning Ministry and was 
active in the cause of popular education and in political and 
legal reforms. As an orator, he was intensely in earnest, the 
fire of his spirit revealed in his eye, his arms swinging easily 
but forcibly and his long index finger seeming to point out with 



64 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



striking directness the wrong which he condemned. Sumner 
heard his closing speech for the emancipation of the slaves. 
It is difticult to tell the effect of that speech upon Sumner's 
fortunes. It was one of the crowning, by some thought to be 
the greatest, effort of Brougham's life. It left a deep impres- 
sion upon Sumner and reminding him of his own country, 
suffering from the same cause, it was probably one of the 
controlling incidents of his life. 

Brougham Hall had been the seat of Lord Brougham's 
family for centuries and though his life was largely passed in 
Edinburgh and London, here for years he spent the vacations 
of the courts and Parliament, not in polite idleness, but in 
secluded application, to the cultivation of literature. Here his 
books were mostly written. Sumner found him then engaged 
upon a translation, from the original Greek, of Demosthenes' 
oration for the crown. It was an ideal spot for the cultiva- 
tion of literature, such a one as would have delighted Sir 
Walter Scott, — a courtyard surrounded with battlements, long 
halls and airy rooms. The library was a beautiful apartment, 
with panels of old oak and a rich ceiling of the same ma- 
terial, emblazoned with numerous heraldic escutcheons in gold, 
a beautiful bow window commanding the fair lawn and terraces 
about the house and the distant mountains, in whose bosom lay 
the far-famed lakes of England. Here Sumner sat, while his 
host dashed off more letters than the ten the law allowed him 
to frank. 

A friend, an old clergyman, came in soon and together they 
dined, Lord Brougham's mother presiding at the table, with 
an apparent touch of motherly pride, in the greatness of her 
son. After dinner the three gentlemen sat until late at night, 
engaged in conversation, or rather the other two in listening to 
the torrent of Lord Brougham's about his contemporaries, his 
anecdotes of them, about America and Americans and books. 
He had one habit that Sumner characterized as " bad and 
vulgar beyond expression, — I mean swearing". He added; 
" I have dined in company nearly every day since I have been 
in England, and I do not remember to have met a person who 
swore half so much as Lord Brougham; — and all this in con- 
versation with an aged clergyman ! " 

The next morning Sumner took his departure. Lord 
Brougham already had his books down, ready for work. He 
franked a letter for Sumner to Hillard, thanked him for his 
visit, shook him cordially by the hand, apologized for not ac- 
companying him to the door, and before he had left the library, 
Lord Brougham's head was down, absorbed in his work. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 65 

From Brougham Hall, Sumner went to Keswick to see the 
poet Wordsworth, where on September 8, he wrote Hillard : 
" I have seen Wordsworth ! Your interest in this great man, 
and the contrast which he presents to that master-spirit 
(Brougham) I have already described to you, induce me to 
send these lines immediately on the heels of my last. How odd 
it seemed to knock at a neighbor's door and inquire, 'Where 
does Mr, Wordsworth live ? Think of rapping at Westminster 
Abbey and asking for Mr. Shakespeare or Mr. Milton ! I found 
the poet living as I could have wished, with worldly comfort 
about him and without show. His house was not large or so 
elegant as to draw the attention from its occupant; and more 
truly did I enjoy myself, for the short time I was under his 
roof, than when in tlie emblazoned halls of Lord Brougham. 
The house is situated on the avenue leading to Eydal Hall; 
and the poet may enjoy, as if they were his own, the trees of 
the park and the ancestral cawing of the rooks that almost 
darkened the air with their numbers. His house and grounds 
are pretty and neat; and he was so kind as to attend me in a 
turn round his garden, pointing out several truly delightful 
views of the lakes and mountains. I could not but remark to 
him, however, that the cawing of tlie rooks was more interest- 
ing to me than even the remarkable scenery before us. The 
house itself is unlike those in which I have been received lately ; 
and in its whole style reminded me more of home than any- 
thing I have seen in England. I took tea with the poet, and, 
for the first time since I have been in this country, saw a circle 
round a table at this meal ; and, indeed, it was at six o'clock, 
when always before in England I have been preparing for 
dinner. I mention these little things in order to give you a 
familiar view of Wordsworth. I cannot sufficiently express to 
you my high gratification at his manner and conversation. It 
was simple, graceful and sincere. * * * I felt that I was con- 
versing with a superior being; yet I was entirely at my ease. 
He told me that he was sixty-nine, — at an age when, in the 
course of nature, *the countenance loses the freshness of younger 
years, but his was still full of expression. Conversation turned 
on a variety of topics; and here I have little to record; for 
there were no salient parts, though all was sensible, instructive 
and refined." 

Sumner carried a letter of introduction to Wordsworth 
from Washington Allston, the artist. Professor Cleaveland of 
Bowdoin had given him a letter to Sir David Brewster. He 
had expected to see Southey at Keswick, but he was absent 
making a tour of the Continent. At Wordsworth's house, how- 



QQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ever, he met and dined with Southey's daughter. From Kes- 
wick he went to Melrose, where Sir David Brewster lived. He 
was an experimental philosopher and author of a life of Sir 
Isaac Newton. 

Sept. 12, 1838, Sumner v^^rote: "I am now the guest of Sir 
David Brewster, and am writing in my bedroom, which looks 
upon the Tweed and Melrose Abbey and the Eildon Hills. 
Abbotsford is a short distance above, on the opposite side; 
while the cottages of Lockhart, and that fast friend of Scott, 
Sir Adam Ferguson, are within sight. I spent the whole of 
to-day in rambling with Sir David about Melrose, noting all the 
spots hallowed by Scott's friendship or genius, and finally pay- 
ing my pilgrimage to his tomb at Dryburgh Abbey. At dinner 
we had Sir Adam Ferguson himself and Mr. Todd, — the latter 
a Scottish Judge, and an old friend of Sir Walter, as well as 
Sir Adam. I need not say to you how inexpressibly interesting 
was the whole day, passed in such company, — observing house 
after house in whose hospitality Sir Walter had taken pleas- 
ure, and whose plantations he had watched ; then regarding 
with melancholy interest, the simple sod, in the midst of some 
venerable ruins, which covers his precious dust. And what a 
crown was it, of the whole day, to dine among his chosen friends, 
— to hear their simple, heart touching expressions of regard, 
and the numerous narrations, all untold in print which serve 
to illustrate his character and genius." 

From Melrose Sumner went to Craig Crook Castle, the home 
of Lord Jeffrey, then the managing editor of the Edinburgh 
Eeview, where he spent a portion of a day. He reached 
Edinburgh on September twentieth, and here and in the 
neighborhood he spent nine days. During this time he re- 
ceived constant attention from Lord Jeffrey and his nephew, 
Thomas Brown, whom Sumner had met in Canada during his 
tour in 1830. Brown shortly after that visited Boston and there 
the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. It is unnecessary 
to add that the best circles of P]dinburgh were opened to Sum- 
ner, when his own ability to make friends 'was supported by 
Lord Jeffrey. He had written Sumner in advance, rather dis- 
paragingly of his prospect, regretting that all the lawyers were 
off on their vacation, shooting grouse. But the sequel showed 
his fears were groundless, for Sumner was entertained every 
evening of his stay, saying nothing of breakfasts, and was 
besides obliged to decline many invitations. Sumner liked 
Lord Jeffrey. 

He wrote to Hillard : " Jeffrey against all the world ! while 
in Edinburgh I saw much of him and his talent, fertility of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 67 

expression and unlimited information (almost learning) im- 
pressed me more and more. He spoke on every subject, and 
always better than anybody else. Sydney Smith is infinitely 
pleasant, and instructive too ; but the flavor of his conversation 
is derived from its humor. Jeffrey is not without humor, but 
this is not a leading element. He pleases by the alternate ex- 
ercise of every talent ; at one moment by a rapid argument, then 
by a beautiful illustration, next by a phrase which draws a 
whole thought into its powerful focus, while a constant grace 
of language and amenity of manners with proper contributions 
from humor and wit, heighten these charms. I have been 
fortunate in knowing as I have known, — aye, in knowing at 
their liearths — the three great men of the Edinburgh He- 
view — Smith, Brougham and Jeffrey. But there is a fourth, 
— John A. Murray, the present Lord Advocate of Scotland. 
It was Murray who gave the motto, at which Sydney Smith 
laughed, — "^ Judex damnatur cum nocens ahsolvitur,' — from 
Publius Syrus, though he was innocent of having read 
Syrus." 

From Edinburgh Sumner went to visit his friend, the 
nephew of Lord Jeffrey, Thomas Brown, at his home, Lanfire 
House, near Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. He remained there five 
days, recalling former scenes and. making new friends, reading 
in the library or enjoying the beautiful prospects from its win- 
dows, rambling about the woods, extending for more than a 
mile on either side of the house, or riding about the estate, so 
extensive that one might go twenty miles without passing be- 
yond its limits. Here amid Highland scenery he also enjoyed 
the festivities of a Highland wedding. 

In the contrast between the life of Brown and his uncle. 
Lord Jeffrey, there is illustrated a fact too often overlooked by 
Americans. Brown was an easy-going young man of ability 
but without a definite aim in life. He was well educated and, 
as a son of the sister of Lord Jeffrey might be expected to be, 
of fine literary taste and on intimate terms with such men as 
Talfourd, the eminent barrister, essayist and judge of Edin- 
burgh. He had travelled much, was an easy conversationalist, 
full of anecdote and a delightful companion. He spent a good 
deal of his time in Edinburgh and London at the clubs, of 
which he was a member, in dignified and elegant idleness. 

On the other hand his noble uncle, Lord Jeffrey, was a toil- 
ing barrister and author, the chief editor of tlie Edinburgh 
Eeview in its best days. He opened a new era in English 
Literature and rose to the rank of an eminent Scottish Judge. 
'As a reviewer he has had no superior. He was the early, and, to 



68 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the end of his life, the intimate friend of Carlyle, whom he 
found a struggling young author of talent, but without a read- 
ing public, and he opened the columns of the " Review " to him 
and assisted him to recognition ; he first saw and criticised 
privately and published the inimitable article on " Burns." 
Carlyle recognized the debt and after they were all gone he 
permanently associated Lord Jeffrey's name with those of his 
wife and father in his volume of " Reminiscences ". 

He has given us this description o£ him : " Jeffrey rose into 
higher and higher professional repute. * * * j honestly ad- 
mired him * * * was always glad to notice him, when I strolled 
into the courts, and eagerly enough stepped up to hear if I 
found him pleading; a delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, 
as he merely walked about, much more if he were speaking; 
uncommonly bright black eyes, instinct with vivacity, intelli- 
gence, and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate oval face, full 
of rapid expression, figure light, nimble, pretty, though small, 
perhaps hardly five feet in height, wore his black hair closely 
dipt." 

It is sad to notice, in contrast, the later picture Carlyle gives 
us of him, — ^burdened with the cares of his judicial office, in 
ill health, the vivacity and grace of his early days gone, wear- 
ing out and breaking down, how it brought back the pregnant 
remark of Talfourd, on a career at the bar: "A life of success 
though a life of excitement is also a life of constant toil in 
which the pleasures of contemplation and society are sparingly 
felt and it sometimes leads to a melancholy close." 

The life of Lord Jeffrey illustrates a fact we sometimes for- 
get, that the nobility of Great Britain are by no means an idle 
class. Their lives are frequently full of strenuous exertion. 
In their great houses, upon their extensive estates, with the 
number of their servants and dependants around them, neces- 
sary to the successful and profitable management of their prop- 
erty, they often approach a style of living akin to royalty. But 
it has been well said that a great estate is no sinecure if it is 
to be kept great. The heads of these houses are often perplexed 
with cares that the quiet passer little heeds nor long remembers. 
The most of the enjoyment falls to the lot of the young mem- 
bers of their families, like Sumner's friend Brown, who had 
not yet come to the care of the estates. But they are usually 
trained to good habits and a correct mode of life, in anticipa- 
tion of future responsibilities and usefulness. 

Brown's father and mother were still living. She reminded 
Sumner of her brother Lord Jeffrey. She manifestly had 
some of his tastes, for Sumner remarked that the walls of the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 69 

library at Lanfire House were full of books from the floor to 
the ceiling. 

Sumner reluctantly left this delightful retreat. He went to 
Dumbarton, nestling on the river Clyde, at the foot of the 
famous fortress-crowned rock that gave its name to the town. 
Like a great frowning Gibraltar it seemed to have protected 
the town from the feuds of former years. 

Talfourd had taken for the summer Glenarbuck Cottage, 
about four miles from Dumbarton. Sumner visited and dined 
with him there. He was invited to be his guest while at Dum- 
barton, but this he had declined and having spent a day wander- 
ing over his wild grounds and along the Clyde, he pursued his 
way to Strachur Park, on Loch Fyne, opposite Inverary. This 
was the home of Murray, the Lord Advocate of Scotland. It 
was in the heart of the Highlands, on one of those lovely sheets 
of water that give a charm to the scenery. It was surrounded 
by mountains whose ragged forms were mirrored at his feet in 
the clear waters of the loch. He crossed Loch Lomond and by 
the moon's light rowed over Loch Katrine; and visited the 
island of the " Lady of the Lake," embalmed all of them, in 
scenes of Scott's minstrelsy. 

" No pathway meets the wanderer's ken 
Unless he climb with footing nice, 
A far projecting precipice 
The broom's tough roots his ladder made. 
The hazel saplings lent their aid ; 
And thus an airy point he won, 
Where, gleaming with the setting sun, 
One burnished sheet of living gold, 
Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll'd, 
In all her length far winding lay 
With promontory, creek, and bay. 
And islands that empurpled bright 
Floated amid the livelier light, 
Where mountains that like giants stand 
To sentinel enchanted land." 

Sumner reached Stirling, a city like Dumbarton, on October 
seventh. The fortress crowning the eminence two hundred and 
twenty feet above the plain in which the city stands, was built 
centuries before, and around it, more than any other in Scot- 
land, rolled the waves of Highland warfare. Its pride ante- 
dated the union of the two kingdoms. 

From Stirling he went to Glasgow and then crossing the 
Irish Sea he spent some days in Dublin, the guest of Lord 
]\rorpeth, then Chief Secretary, but afterwards Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. 



70 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

From Dublin he returned to England, reaching Yorkshire 
on October twenty-first. He spent the next two weeks in visit- 
ing at three of the most famous country seats in the kingdom, 
— Wortley Hall, the seat of Lord Wharncliffe; Wentwortli 
House, the seat of Earl Pitzwilliam and Holkham House, the 
seat of Earl Leicester. 

'^ I have passed three agreeable nights at Wortley," he wrote 
Judge Story. " Before I came here. Lord Morpeth told me that 
I should find Wentworth magnificent and Wortley comfortable. 
And you may conceive an English Peer's idea of comfort when 
I tell you that Wortley Hall is a spacious edifice, built by the 
husband of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I do not know an 
edifice like it in the United States, with extensive domains. 
Wliarnclilfe Park, which belongs to it, contains of itself eight- 
een hundred acres, in which the deer are ranging. Everything 
about it is elegant." 

Sumner reached Wentworth House on the evening of October 
twenty-fourth after dark, as the family were going in to din- 
ner. He was at once shown to his room, by the groom of the 
chambers, and having dressed got into the dining-room just 
after the disappearance of fish and found a place reserved for 
him by the side of Lady Charlotte, the eldest daughter of his 
host. Lord Fitzwilliam. There were twenty-five or more at 
table. In the chapel that evening at prayers there were about 
fifty servants constituting the household establishment. The 
house and estate once belonged to the great Earl of Strafford 
and many of the books in the library contained his autograph. 
There too were all the papers of Edmund Burke, — his letters, 
essays and unpublished manuscripts. 

It should be added here that Lord Fitzwilliam at whose seat, 
Wentworth House, Sumner was now visiting was the descend- 
ant and legal representative of Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of 
Strafford of the reign of Charles I, who as Lord Deputy of 
Ireland had governed that country with great administrative 
ability, but at the same time with almost intolerable severity 
and whose " thoroughness " was again called into requisition to 
suppress the Scots who had revolted against the King. In the 
struggle of the Commons against the King, Strafford was im- 
peached, condemned to death and beheaded. Among the art 
treasures of Wentworth House, was an original portrait of the 
great Earl by Vandyke, which Sumner admired. His " won- 
derful features " were thus preserved to posterity on the es- 
tates he had founded and in the halls once familiar with his 
presence. 

At Wentwortli Sumner was invited by Mr. Thompson to 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 71 

spend a clay, before going to Holkham House, at his home Fair- 
field Lodge near York, whence he conld visit the famous Min- 
ster. He had already seen Salisbury and Durham cathedrals. 
He confessed that these famous structures made a deep im- 
pression upon him. As he expressed it he was when looking at 
them " in communion with no single mind, — bright and gifted 
though it be, — but with whole generations ", and the voiceless 
walls seemed to speak, and the olden time, with its sceptred 
palls, to pass before him. He accepted Mr. Thompson's invi- 
tation, but in viewing York Minster he was to be disappointed. 
He saw it on a rainy day, when it was inconvenient to be out 
and the view of its height and proportions was obscured, so 
the pleasure, he had experienced on viewing Salisbury and 
Durham cathedrals, was lost. 

Farther along the road to Holkham he stopped at Boston, 
" not famous Boston," he wrote, " where I first drew the breath 
but the small place on the distant coast of Lincolnshire, 
whence John Cotton, * whose fame was in all the churches ', 
went to settle our New England." He saw the old parsonage 
which Cotton had left for the woods of America and tapped at 
the back door, with a venerable triangular knocker, the same 
doubtless the hands of the Puritan preacher had known before 
he forsook the soft cushion of the Established Church and that 
"fine Gothic pile", the parish church of Boston, built in the 
time of Edward III, on which so many centuries had since 
shed their sunshine and pelted their storms. 

Sumner reached Holkham House on the first of November, 
1838. The owner of the estate, Thomas William Coke, Earl 
of Leicester, had inherited it from his uncle, who was a de- 
scendant of Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England, and 
author of the Commentaries upon Littleton. The present Earl, 
was eighty-six years old though he lived to be ninety. He had 
a long and distinguished Parliamentary career and was the 
friend of America. He moved for the recognition of the In- 
dependence of the Colonies and accounted this act in his Par- 
liamentary career the proudest event of his life. He was the 
warm friend of Fox and in early life of Brougham. His mon- 
arch, George IV, visited him at Holkham and familiarly called 
him " Tom ", and Fox, " Charles ". But withal he was an 
enthusiastic farmer and devoted much time upon his estate to 
the improvement of agriculture and was reputed to be " the 
first farmer of England ". His seat, where Sumner was now 
his guest, was one of the most famous in England. 

"This house," Sumner wrote Hillard, "has not the fresh 
magnificence of Chatsworth (the princely residence of the Duke 



ij-^ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

of Devonshire), the feudal air of Raby and Auckland castles, or 
the grand front of Wentworth; but it seems to me to blend 
more magnificence and comfort, and to hold a more complete 
collection of interesting things, whether antiques, pictures or 
manuscripts, than any seat I have visited. The entrance hall 
is the noblest I have ever seen; and the suite of apartments is 
the best arranged for show and comfort that can be imagined. 
With the doors open you may look through a vista of eleven 
spacious rooms ; and these of the most agreeable proportions and 
adorned by the choicest productions of the pencil " (by Titian, 
Claude, Vandyke, Raphael, Da Vinci and Rubens among 
others). 

From Holkham, Sumner went to London, reaching there 
November fourth, 1838, and at once found himself among 
friends and in the social whirl of the metropolis. " Put two 
Bostons, two New Yorks, two Philadelphias and two Baltimores 
together," he wrote, and you may have an idea of London. 
" The extent and variety of the life of the place is truly won- 
derful. Among banks it is the clearing-house of the world ; in 
commerce and letters, it is its capital. Nowhere else is there 
such an accumulation of learning and ability and wealth. Its 
extent is so vast and its life so complicated that one might 
spend his life there and still feel that he did not know the half 
of it." Sumner had spent two months there before and he was 
now to remain four more, not to see it all, but to see some 
persons and things of especial interest to him. 

Soon after his return he had an opportunity of seeing Wind- 
sor Castle, the residence of Queen Victoria. In a letter to 
Hillard, he described life, in the house of the Queen, as he 
saw it. His description deprives it of a good deal of the pomp 
and circumstance, which the ordinary magazine articles have 
thrown around it. 

" My day at Windsor," he wrote, *' would furnish a most in- 
teresting chapter of chit-chat. I had the pleasure of making 
the acquaintance, at Lord Morpeth's table, of Mr. Rich, the 
member for Knaresborough, and the author of the pamphlet, 
" What will the Peers do ? " He is one of the gentlemen of the 
bedchamber of the Queen; or as they are called under the 
virgin queen, gentlemen-in-waiting. He was kind enough to 
invite me to visit him at Windsor Castle, and obtained special 
permission from her Majesty to show me the private rooms, I 
went down to breakfast where we had young Murray, the head 
of the household. Lord Surrey, etc. Lord Byron, who, you 
know, was a captain in the navy, is a pleasant rough fellow, 
who has not many of the smooth turns of the courtier. He 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 73 

came rushing into the rooms where we were, crying out, " This 
day is a real sneezer; it is a rum one indeed. Will her Maj- 
esty go out to-day ? " Lord Surrey hoped she would not, 
unless she would ride at the " slapping pace " at which she 
went the day before, which was twenty miles in two hours. 
You understand that her suite accompany the Queen in her 
equestrian excursions. Lord Byron proposed to breakfast with 
us; but they told him that he must go upstairs and breakfast 
with the " gals ", — meaning the ladies of the bedchamber and 
maids of honor, Countess Albemarle, Lady Byron, Lady Little- 
ton, Miss Cavendish, etc." 

During the early days of December, Sumner visited Oxford 
and while there was the guest of Sir Charles Vaughan and 
occupied a room in the University. Eeturning to London on 
December thirteenth, after four days spent at Oxford, he left on 
the fourteenth to spend as many days at Cambridge. Here he 
dined with some of the Professors and in Trinity College with 
some of the undergraduates and Fellows, thus meeting many 
members of different degrees in the University. He was in- 
terested in the courses of study and in the discipline. Some 
of the tutors wrote out for him the requirements for degrees 
in some of the courses, which he preserved for use on his re- 
turn home. He, remarked the thoroughness of the examina- 
tions which he believed could not be passed without having 
completed the course according to the requirements. From 
Cambridge he went to Milton Park to spend Christmas and a 
portion of the holidays as the guest of Lord Fitzwilliam. He 
had been specially invited when visiting his Lordship at his 
other seat, Wentworth House, to visit Milton Park at this 
time, to enjoy an English fox-hunt. He wrote his impressions 
of this great national sport to Hillard. 

" I am passing," he wrote, " my Christmas week with Lord 
Fitzwilliam, in one of the large country-houses of Old England. 
I have already written you about Wentworth House. The 
place where I now am is older and smaller; in America, how- 
ever, it would be vast. The house is Elizabethan. Here I 
have been enjoying fox-hunting, to the imminent danger of 
my limbs and neck ; that they still remain intact is a miracle. 
His Lordship's hounds are among the finest in the kingdom, 
and his huntsman is reputed the best. There are about eighty 
couples; the expense of keeping them is about five thousand 
pounds a year. In his stables there are some fifty or sixty hun- 
ters that are only used with the hounds, and of course are unem- 
ployed during the summer. The exertion of a day's sport is so 
great that a horse does not go out more than once in a week. 



74 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



I think I have never participated in anything more exciting 
than this exercise. The history of my exploit will confirm this. 
The morning after my arrival I mounted at half-past nine 
o'clock a beautiful hunter and rode with Lord Milton about 
six miles to the place of meeting. There were the hounds and 
hunters and whippers-in, and about eighty horsemen, — noble- 
men and gentry and clergy of the neighborhood, all beautifully 
mounted, and the greater part in red coats, leather breeches 
and white top-boots. The hounds were sent into the cover, and 
it was a grand sight to see so many handsome dogs, all of a 
size, and all washed before coming out, rushing into the under- 
wood to start the fox. We were unfortunate in not getting a 
scent immediately, and rode from cover to cover ; but soon the 
cry was raised "^ Tally-ho ! ' — the horn was blowed — the dogs 
barked — the horsemen rallied — the hounds scented their way 
through the cover on the trail of the fox and then started in 
full run. I had originally intended only to ride to cover to see 
them throw off, and then make my way home, believing myself 
unequal to the probable run; but the chase commenced, and I 
was in the midst of it ; and being excellently mounted, nearly 
at the head of it, never did I see such a scamper ; and never did 
it enter into my head that horses could be pushed to such 
speed in such places. We dashed through and over the bushes, 
leaping broad ditches, splashing in brooks and mud and pass- 
ing over fences as so many imaginary lines. My first fence I 
shall not readily forget. I was near Lord Milton, who was 
mounted on a thoroughbred horse. He cleared a fence before 
him. My horse pawed the ground and neighed. I gave him 
the rein, and he cleared the fence; as I was up in the air for 
one moment, how was I startled to look down and see that 
there was not only a fence but a ditch ! He cleared the ditch 
too. I have said it was my first experiment. I lost my balance, 
was thrown to the very ears of the horse, but in some way or 
other contrived to work myself back to the saddle without 
touching the ground (see some of the hunting pictures of 
leaps, etc.). How I got back I cannot tell, but I did regain my 
seat and my horse was at a run in a moment. All this you 
will understand passed in less time by far than it will take to 
read this account. One moment we were in a scamper through 
a ploughed field, another over a beautiful pasture, and another 
winding through the devious paths of a wood. I think I may 
say that in no single day of my life did I ever take as much 
exercise. I have said I mounted at nine and a half o'clock. 
It wanted twenty minutes of five when I finally dismounted, 
not having been out of the saddle more than thirty seconds 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ^ 75 

during all this time, and then only to change my horse, takmg 
a fresii one from a groom who was in attendance. During 
much of this time we were on a full run." 

" The next day had its incidents. The place of meeting for 
the hounds was fourteen miles from the house. Our horses 
were previously led thither hy grooms and we rode there in a 
carriage and four, with outriders, and took our horses fresh. 
This day I met with a fall. The country was very rough an4 
the fences often quite stiff and high. I rode among the fore- 
most, and in going over a fence and brook together, came to the 
ground. My horse cleared them both and I cleared him, for 
I went directly over his head. Of course he started off, but was 
soon caught by Milton and a parson, who had already made 
the leap very" successfully. * * * * Every day that I 
was out it rained, — the first day incessantly, — and yet I was 
fully unconscious of it, so interested did I become in the sport. 
Indeed sportsmen rather wish a rain because it makes the 
ground soft. We generally got home about five o'clock; and I 
will give you the history of the rest of the day that you may see 
how time passes in one of the largest houses in England. Din- 
ner was early because the sportsmen returned fatigued and 
witliout having tasted a morsel of food since early breakfast. 
So after our return, we only had time to dress ; and at five and 
one-half o'clock assembled iii the library, from which we went in 
to dinner. For three days I was the only guest here, — during 
the last four we have had Professor Whewell, — so that I can de- 
scribe to you what was simply the family establishment. One 
day I observed that there were only nine of us at the table and 
there were thirteen servants in attendance. Of course the serv- 
ice is entirely of silver. You have in proper succession, soup, 
fish, venison' and the large English dishes besides a profusion 
of French entrees with ice-cream and ample dessert,-— Madeira, 
sherrv, claret, port and champagne. We do not sit long at 
table"; but return to the library, which opens into two or three 
drawing-rooms and is itself used as the principal one, where we 
find tlie ladies already at their embroidery, and also coffee. 
Conversation goes languidly. The boys are sleepy, and Lord 
Fitzwilliam is serious and melancholy; and very soon I am 
willing to kill off an hour or so by a game of cards. Some- 
times his Lordship plays, at other times he slowly peruses the 
last volume of PrescotVs " Ferdinand and Isabella ". About 
eleven o'clock I am glad to retire to my chamber, which is a very 
large apartment, with two large oriel windows looking out 
upon the lawns where the deer are feeding. There I find a 
glowing fire ; and in one of the various easy-chairs sit and muse 



1 

wHi 



/ 

LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



(lie the fire burns, or resort to the pen, ink and paper which 
are, carefully placed on the table near me." 

(^n December twenty-eighth, Sumner was back in London 
again. On January sixth, 1839, he made an excursion to Strat- 
ford-on-Avon to spend a day among the scenes familiar in the 
early and later life of Shakespeare. He visited Kenilworth and 
Warwick Castles in the same neighborhood and extended his 
excursions as far as Birmingham. The remainder of his time 
till March twenty-second he spent in London. He had spent 
his time there before mostly with members of the bar and the 
judges; but now his acquaintance became more general and to 
this period must be referred the rich fund of reminiscence 
which London always recalled to him. His associations were 
with literary men, orators and statesmen, as well, of course, as 
members of his own profession. His letters do not indicate 
that he was much attracted to the fair sex, but occasional refer- 
ences reveal that he was not insensible to female beauty. Take, 
for instance, the description he gives of a dinner with the four 
granddaughters of Eichard Brinsley Sheridan, daughters of 
his son Thomas, the poet. 

" One of the pleasantest dinners," he wrote Hillard, " I ever 
enjoyed was with Mrs. Norton. She now lives with her uncle 
Mr. Charles Sheridan, who is a bachelor. We had a small com- 
pany, — Old p]dward Ellice ; Fonblanque, whose writings you so 
much admire ; Hayward ; Phipps, the brother of the Marquis 
Normanby ; Lady Seymour, the sister of Mrs. Norton ; and 
Lady Graham, the wife of Sir John Graham; and Mrs. Phipps. 
All of these are very clever people; Ellice, whose influence is 
said, more than that of all other men, to keep the present 
ministry in power; Fonblanque is harsli-looking, rough in voice 
and manner, but talks with the same knowledge and sententious 
brilliancy with which he writes. But the women were by far 
more remarkable than the men. I unhesitatingly say that they 
were the four most beautiful, clever and accomplished women I 
have ever seen together. The beauty of Mrs. Norton has never 
been exaggerated. It is brilliant and refined. Her countenance 
is lighted by eyes of the intensest brightness and her features 
are of the greatest regularity. There is something tropical in 
her look ; it is so intensely bright and burning, with large, dark 
eyes, dark hair and Italian complexion. And her conversa- 
tion is so pleasant and powerful without being masculine, or 
rather it is masculine without being mannish ; there is the grace 
and ease of the woman with a strength and skill of which any 
man might well be proud. Mrs. Norton is about twenty-eight 
years old and is I believe a grossly slandered woman. She has 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 77 

been a woman of fashion and has received many attentions, 
which doubtless she would have declined had she been brought 
up under the advice of a mother ; but which we may not 
wonder she did not decline, circumstanced as she was. It will 
be enough for you, and I doubt not you will be happy to 
hear it of so remarkable and beautiful a woman, that I be- 
lieve her entirely innocent of the grave charges (of improper 
intimacy with Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister) that have 
been brought against her. I count her one of the brightest in- 
tellects I have ever met. I whisper in your ear what is not to 
be published abroad, that she is the unaided author of a tract 
which has just been published on the ' Infant Custody Bill ' 
and purports to be by Pearce Stevenson, Esq, norn de guerre. 
I think it is one of the most remarkable things from the pen of 
a woman. The world here does not suspect her, but supposes 
that the tract is the production of some grave barrister. It is 
one of the best discussions of a legislative matter I have ever 
read. I should have thought Mrs. Norton the most beautiful 
woman I have ever seen, if her sister had not been present. I 
think that Lady Seymour is generally considered the more 
beautiful. Her style of beauty is unlike Mrs. Norton'.s ; her 
features are smaller and her countenance lighter and more 
English. In any other drawing-room she would have been 
deemed quite clever and accomplished, but Mrs. ]Srorton''s claim 
to these last characteristics are so pre-eminent as to dwarf the 
talents and attainments of others of her sex who are by her 
side. Lady Seymour has no claim to literary distinction. The 
homage she receives is offered to her beauty and her social posi- 
tion. Lady Graham is older than these ; while Mrs. Phipps is 
younger. These two were only inferior in beauty to Mrs. 
Norton and Lady Seymour. In such society you may well sup- 
pose the hours flew on rosy pinions. It was after midnight 
when we separated." 

In the same vein was the description Sumner gave of the 
speech of the young Queen Victoria at the opening of Parlia- 
ment. Through the kindness of Lord Morpeth, he was ac- 
commodated with a place at the bar, — he thought it the best 
place occupied by any person not in court dress. Prince Louis 
Bonaparte was behind him. He enjoyed the sight, as at the 
coronation, of the peeresses as they took their seats in full 
dress, resplendent with jewels and costly ornaments. The room 
of the House of Lords was not large and made them all seem 
within a short distance of him, so that his view was good. 

When the Queen entered with the crown, which seemed too 
heavy for one so young, on her head, she was attended by the 



78 LIFE OF CHARLES SV3INER 

fjreat officers of state and there were great guns sounding and 
trumpets blowing, which added to the scene. She took her seat 
with quiet dignity, and with a voice not audible by tliose at any 
distance directed the House of Commons to be summoned. But 
she retained all eyes ■; her face was flushed with excitement, her 
hands moved nervously on the golden arms of the throne and 
her gloves could not conceal the trembling fingers. She was a 
Queen, but her little, ill-suppressed nervousness showed she had 
still the heart of a woman and vindicated her relationship to us 
all. Yet she bore herself well — Sumner thought these little 
things were not noticeable to the audience generally, and they 
delighted him with her far more than if she had sat as if cut 
in alabaster. 

The Commons came thundering in and after they had been 
seated and quiet Vv^as restored, her Majesty commenced reading 
her speech, which the Lord Chancellor had handed her. At 
first her voice was inaudible. It was not till she was a third 
through that slie spoke sufficiently loud for him to understand 
what she said. But after that every word came to him in such 
silvery accents, with a voice so sweet and finely modulated, 
every .word distinctly pronounced and with such just regard 
for its meaning, that Sumner thought he had never heard any- 
thing better read in his life. After it was over he could but 
agree with Lord Fitzv/illiam's ejaculation to him, " How beau- 
tifully she performs ! " In the evening the House of Lords 
met for business and Sumner heard the Lord Chancellor read 
the speech again and he remarked how unlike that of the girl 
Queen was the reading of her Lord Chancellor. 

As Sumner's stay in England drew to a close, he bade good- 
bye to many pleasant acquaintances and on the night of March 
twenty-second crossed the English Channel to Boulogne. 

During his travels in England he heard some estimates of his 
countrymen which he records as mutually interesting to them 
and to himself. Sydney Smith wrote him that he had a great 
admiration for Americans, that he was pleased with their 
honesty, simplicity and manliness and that he had met a great 
number, who were agreeable and enlightened. Samuel Eogers, 
the poet, in speaking of them to an English friend, admitted 
that they were generally very agreeable and accomplished men, 
but insisted that there was too much of them, that they took 
up too much of the time of the English. In a still different 
vein is an incident that Sumner himself met with. He was at 
a dinner with Mr. William Theobald, the author of a legal 
treatise on " Principal and Surety ", where he was invited to 
meet Eogers, Kenyon, Hayward, Courtenay, Mrs. Shelley and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 79 

some others. Sumner talked a good deal with Mrs. Shelley, 
whom he found to be a very nice, agreeable person, of great 
cleverness. She said that the greatest happiness of a woman 
was to be the wife or mother of a distinguished man. But what 
amused Sumner most of all, was an expression that broke 
from her unawares. They were speaking of travellers who vio- 
lated social ties and published personal sketches, when forget- 
ting he was an American, she broke out : " Thank God ! 
I have kept clear of those Americans." Sumner did not seem 
to observe what she said and she soon after atoned for it. 

As he was leaving England he recorded his impressions of her 
people. What is called society there he thought was better 
educated, more refined and more civilized than what is called 
society in the United States. He insisted that what he called 
society must not be confounded v/ith individuals, that he knew 
persons in America, who would be an ornament to any circle, 
but that there was no dass of Americans that would compare 
with the circle which constituted English society, that the dif- 
ference in education in England, where everybody understood 
French and Latin and Greek, was very much against the Ameri- 
cans. He thought the true pride of America was in her mid- 
dle and poorer classes, in their general health and happiness, 
and freedom from poverty ; in their opportunities for education 
and for rising in the social scale. He agreed with Cliarles 
Buller, who was best j)leased with all below the " silk-stocking 
classes." 



CHAPTER VIII 

TO PARIS AGAIN — EMPLOYMENT THERE — NORTHEAST BOUNDARY 
— JOURNEY TO ROME — COMPANIONS — HIS FATHER'S DEATH 
— STUDIES — GREENE, CRAWFORD FLORENCE — VENICE 

Sumner reached Boulogne on the morning of March 23, 
1839, and at once proceeded by coach to Paris. On the road he 
travelled with an English Member of Parliament, who, mis- 
taking him for an Englishman, talked very freely about the 
Americans. Sumner, with sly humor, enjoyed the thrusts, that 
were being made at his countrymen, and forbore to correct 
him. 

He remained in Paris until April 20th: "I am here," he 
wrote, " simply en route for Italy ; but I could not be in this 
charming place without reviving some of my old acquaintances, 
and once more enjoying the splendid museums and galleries 
and sights." He attended the operas and theatres and revived 
his recollections of the beautiful buildings and streets by re- 
visiting most of them. One day he passed at Versailles where 
with melancholy interest he saw the exquisite conception of 
Joan of Arc, sculptured by poor Mary of Orleans, whom he had 
seen a year before, a bright, beautiful and interesting princess. 
Lord Morpeth had commended him to Lord Granville, the 
English Minister at Paris, by whom he was kindly received. 
General Cass, our Minister, to whom, on leaving home, it will 
be remembered he had been made a bearer of dispatches, also 
showed him some attentions. Lord Brougham was there. He 
was attached to Sumner, as Sumner was to him, and many were 
the hours they passed pleasantly together. Thorn's balls were 
then among the great attractions in Paris and invitations were 
eagerly sought. It illustrates Sumner's opportunities, when 
Lord Brougham addressed him a note asking Sumner to get 
him an invitation, which he did. 

Sumner found some serious employment to occupy him dur- 
ing his stay in Paris. The question of the Northeastern 
Boundary, between Maine and Canada, had assumed alarming 
proportions and threatened war between the United States and 
England. The trouble arose from the equivocal marks of the 
original surveys, made at an early day when they were of little 
importance. It was finally settled by the Treaty of Washington, 
80 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 81 

negotiated in 1842, by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, in 
which the original lines were abandoned and an arbitrary one 
established by mutual agreement. When Sumner came to Paris 
there was a feeling with General Cass and the members of his 
legation that the American argument was not understood in 
England and upon the Continent. There was a wish to have 
some one prepare and publish a careful statement of it. Gen- 
eral Cass did not care himself to undertake this and others to 
whom application was made declined the task. The choice 
iinally fell on Sumner and he undertook the work. 

He wrote an elaborate article that was published in " Gal- 
ignani's Messenger", the longest ever till then published in 
that journal. It had a circulation of eight or ten thousand on 
the Continent and a thousand copies were ordered, to dis- 
tribute to Members of the English Parliament. Mr. Hume, 
then a Member, was so much interested in the article that he 
undertook to distribute these copies. Sumner also wrote about 
thirty letters on the subject to persons of prominence in Eng- 
land, of his acquaintance, and was besides able to interest Lord 
Brougham. 

This work gained Sumner some fame at home. The State of 
Maine had originally been part of Massachusetts; hence her 
people were familiar with the merits of the controversy. 
Sumner's article was reprinted and discussed in the Boston 
papers and commented on among public men. An incident, 
connected with the discussion, threatened an interruption of the 
friendship between Sumner and Lord Brougham. Some con- 
versation of Sumner with one Walsh, in Paris, touching the 
views of Lord Brougham, as expressed about that time to 
Sumner, were misrepresented and were printed in disparage- 
ment of the remarks of his Lordship in the House of Peers. 
Lord Brougham complained of this to Sumner, who promptly 
published a contradiction of Walsh's article and condemned it 
as false. This was entirely satisfactory to Lord Brougham and 
the affair served at last to cement their friendship. 

Sumner left Paris for Lyons, by the mail coach on April 
twentieth and, after a short rest there, travelled on in the same 
tedious way to Marseilles. He embarked there for Rome, on 
May third, 1839. At the commencement of his voyage, he fell 
in with three young Frenchmen of rank, with whom he travelled, 
not without profit to himself, till he reached Pome. They 
placed their money in the hands of one of their number to pay 
their bills. Selected probably for his superior thrift, it was re- 
markable with what nicety he drove their joint bargains, aided 
by the humorous but shrewd wisdom of his companions. They 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

French among themselves. This was an advantage to 
Sumner ;• for he was obliged to speak it too, and thus revive and 
extend his knowledge of the language. All their excursions, at 
the various places stopped at, along the road, were made to- 
gether; — together they passed two days at Genoa, wandering 
among its palaces and groves and enjoying its paintings ; to- 
gether from Leghorn they made a delightful trip to Pisa, 
climbing to the top of its leaning tower and admiring the 
cathedral. They were together at the dirty little seaport, 
Civita Vecchia, and at the beautiful Bay of Naples, " with its 
waters reflecting the blue of heaven and its delicious shores 
studded with historical associations," together they went to 
Pompeii, treading the beautiful mosaics; and together they 
wondered at the frescoes and marbles of its houses, and strolling 
among the columns and arches of its Forum, they asked them- 
selves where, among living cities, could such things be found as 
adorned this child of the ages? Tliey climbed Vesuvius and 
" saw the furnace-like fires which glowed in its yawning cracks 
and seams." They visited Capua, " shorn of all its soft tempta- 
tions and with difficulty found a breakfast of chocolate and 
bread where Hannibal's victorious troops wasted with luxury 
and excess." Thence they drove, passing over the Pontine 
Marshes and the Alban Hills, to Rome, where they arrived on 
the twenty-first of May. Here they separated. 

At Rome the tidings of his father's death reached Sumner. 
He died on April twenty-fourth, after a lingering illness of 
some weeks, sixty-three years of age. A life of confinement, 
with the cares of a large family, on an income much of the time 
small, with few relaxations and no considerable success, af- 
flicted by poor health, towards its close, had rendered him cold 
and cheerless and somewhat rigid and exacting. He had few of 
the traits which attract the hopeful moods of the young. His 
life could furnish little to satisfy their dreams and dazzling am- 
bitions. He had, at the last, too little sympathy for such senti- 
ments. But he was a just man, scrupulously honest, in every 
business transaction. A tinge of suspicion never touched his 
integrity. Everything he did was with the greatest exactness. 
Even his scholarship was of this character. It was thorough 
and systematic. He was as fearless as he was conscientious. 
There must be no shrinking from the performance of any duty. 
The right must be maintained and he was willing to be first to 
support it. But it would be asserted without unnecessary rough- 
ness; for he was always a gentleman and maintained a just re- 
gard for the feelings of others. Taken for all in all, his was a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 83 

careful, painstaking, conscientious life, with little in it for 
self. 

Sumner in childhood had been repelled by his father's cheer- 
less moods. As he grew older the breach seemed to widen and 
after his admission to -the bar, partly in consequence of this, 
he did not live at home. Yet there was no open rupture, only 
a coldness and want of sympathy, between them. Charles was 
obedient and a son in whom the father had sufficient cause for 
pride. But his aspirations were high — higher probably than 
the father thought time would justify. He saw life more so- 
berly. The father did not approve his trip abroad and did not 
aid it. On leaving for Europe, Charles had remonstrated with 
his father, against his strictness witli his children, and urged 
him to give greater opportunities, than he was, to those that re- 
mained at home. The suggestion was not kindly received. While 
he was in Europe, his brother Henry had been made deputy- 
sheriff, by the father's appointment, and Charles expressed his 
regret, wishing something better for his younger brother. 
The circumstance was irritating to the father, in his condition 
of health. Charles wrote once to him, from Europe, but his 
letter was not answered and he did not write again. Consider- 
ing his toils and sacrifices, the father probably felt that these 
apparent criticisms were unjust to him. Coming nnder such 
circumstances, his father's death was peculiarly sad to Charles. 
It grew sadder with his years. The traits that before repelled 
him dwindled in importance and the real merit of the father 
grew upon him. He felt that he had not given him the con- 
sideration he deserved. 

And how often it is that death brings unavailingly back to 
our remembrance kind words that might have been spoken but 
were not. Charles thought that it would have gladdened the 
heart of the father to know that the best he could do, striven 
for manfully, was at least understood and appreciated in the 
spirit it was done, — that it would have soothed his last hours, 
with life all behind, reflecting on its trials and its sacrifices, to 
know, ere he went away, that those nearest to him felt the 
worth of the long days' work ; and that it was not thrust aside 
and overlooked, in the wish for something more that he had not 
been able to do. 

He was cast down by the news. But the friends at home, 
in the same letters that conveyed the intelligence of his father's 
death, urged him to let it make no change in his plans. The 
father had always managed his business and property with such 
care, that there was really little for any one to do, in settling 
up his affairs. The education of his younger brothers and sis- 



84 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ters was a matter of more concern to him. But he reflected 
that his mother was there and that her good judgment, aided 
by "the advice of friends, would accomplish all that he could 
hope to do. She knew his wishes. So he concluded to follow 
the advice given him and finish his trip according to his orig- 
inal plan. 

He spent the summer in Eome, remaining there until the 
middle of August. His time was employed differently from 
what it had been in England, where he had devoted most of it 
to making acquaintances, seeing society, the courts, cathedrals 
and universities and great country seats. In Rome many of his 
letters of introduction were unused, he saw little of society and 
had only a few friends. George W. Greene, the U. S. Consul 
at Home, was one of them. 

" My habits," he wrote, '' were simple. Rose at half-past six 
o'clock, threw myself on my sofa, with a little round table near, 
well covered with books, read undisturbed till about ten, when 
the servant brought, on a tray, my breakfast, — two eggs done 
sur le plat, a roll and a cup of chocolate ; some of the books were 
pushed aside enough to give momentary place to the tray. 
The breakfast was concluded without quitting the sofa ; rang 
the bell and my table was put to rights, and my reading went 
on till five or six o'clock in the evening, without my once rising 
from the sofa. At five or six, got up, stretched myself and 
dressed to go out; dined in a garden under a mulberry tree, 
chiefly on fruits, salads and wines, with the occasional injec- 
tion of a soup or steak ; the fruits were apricots, green almonds 
and figs; the salads, those of the exception under the second 
declension of nouns in our old Latin Grammar ; the wines, the 
light, cooling, delicious product of the country. By this time 
Greene came to me, — in accomplishments and attainments our 
country has not five men his peers, — and we walked to the 
Forum or to San Pietro, or out of one of the gates of Rome. 
Many an hour have we sat upon a broken column or a rich cap- 
ital, in the Via Sacra or the Colosseum, and called to mind what 
has passed before them, weaving out the web of the story they 
might tell ; and then leaping centuries and seas, we have joined 
our friends at home and, with them, shared our pleasures. Af- 
ter an ice-cream, we parted ; I to my books again ; or sometimes 
with him to his house where, over a supper, not unlike the din- 
ner I have described, we continued the topics of our walk. This 
was my day's round, after I had seen the chief of those things 
in Rome that require midday, so that I was able to keep the 
house." 

Sumner revived his knowledge of Latin. But the acquisi- 



LIFE OF CHAPL^F^ SUMNER 85 

tion of the Italian was the primary object and it was to thi 
that he devoted himself with such diligence. He soon acquired 
it. Before he left Italy, he had read the most famous works of 
the language in the original. This was a great source of pleas- 
ure to him. However faithful a translation may be, there is 
always much of the beauty of the original lost to one who can- 
not read the work in the language the author left it. He also 
learned to talk the language; so he could understand all that 
was said to him in a conversation and likewise make himself 
understood. The fellow travellers he met and the servants in 
the hotels where he stopped, after leaving Rome, used the lan- 
guage with him, instead of French, the common one among 
strangers, thus unintentionally complimenting his Italian. He 
always maintained his familiarity with French and Italian and 
made frequent use of both in later life. 

Among the artists he met in Rome, and the one to whom he 
became most attached was Thomas Crawford, a native of New 
York. He was then obscure and unknown to fame, struggling 
for perfection and recognition in his chosen profession. He 
was a man of talent and industry and became one of the famous 
American artists. He designed and executed the statue of 
Liberty that crowns the dome of the National Capitol at Wash- 
ington and the equestrian statue of Washington on the State 
House grounds in Richmond, Va. He was then poor and 
down-hearted and dispirited, at his want of success. Sumner, 
with his quick appreciation for struggling merit, became his 
enthusiastic friend, encouraged him to go on and sought by 
every means to secure for him the recognition he deserved. He 
praised his work, gave him an order for a bust of himself and 
wrote enthusiastically of him to Hillard and other friends at 
home, urging them to try to secure orders for him. Orders 
did come afterwards in abundance ; and when Sumner visited 
Europe again in 1857, he found Crawford in the full realiza- 
tion of fame, but, as sometimes happens, too sick to enjoy it. 
He was fading away, in the blight of a slow disease, and died a 
few months later, at the age of forty-four, his life probably 
shortened, and his career ended too soon, by early disappoint- 
ments. 

Among Sumner's pleasant experiences at Rome, was an ex- 
cursion he made with his friend Greene to the convent of 
Palazzuola, situated on the site of Alba Longa, amid precipices 
and impenetrable forests, overlooking the beautiful Alban Lake. 
Its situation was so inaccessible that no vehicle could approach 
within two miles of it. It was a delightful refreshment dur- 
ing the heated season of the year to lounge in its spacious halls. 



gg LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to wander in the shade of its rocks and trees and to bathe in the 
waters of its lake. They remained here several days, having 
had assigned to them three apartments each, a bedroom, a 
cabinet and an antechamber. Sumner's antechamber was 
vaulted and covered with arabesques. The arched ceilings and 
the walls of the other two rooms were painted so as to resemble 
the stone walls of a hermit's cell, while at the post of his bed, 
hung the beads and the crucifix of a monk. The library of the 
monastery contained about a thousand volumes in Latin and 
Italian, all ancient works in parchment. To examine such a 
library was a treat to the lover of curious books. Sumner took 
them down one by one, some of them he found bottom upwards 
and apparently with the dust of centuries upon them. The 
librarian told him there were no manuscripts but he found 
more than a dozen. The standard work on geography repre- 
sented England as composed of seven kingdoms. America as 
belonging to Spain, with Boston as the capital and Vera Cruz 
as the chief commercial centre. 

The convent belonged to monks of the Franciscan order, one 
of the most rigid of the Roman Church. They wore neither 
hats nor stockings and only sandals on their feet. The rest of 
their dress consisted of a coarse woollen cloak or robe. They 
subsisted by charity. " One of their number," Sumner wrote, 
"lately was begging for corn of a farmer, who was treading 
out with oxen the summer's harvest. The farmer in derision, 
and as a way of refusing, pointed to a bag, which contained a 
load for three men and told the monk he was welcome to that 
if he would cany it off. The monk invoked St. Francis, stooped 
and took up the load and quietly carried it away. The aston- 
ished farmer followed him to the convent and required the re- 
turn of his corn. His faith was not great enough to see the 
miracle. It was given up but, the story coming to the ears of 
the governor of the town, he summarily ordered the restoration 
of the corn to the convent." 

The time Sumner had allowed for his stay in Eome passed 
quickly. His days were absorbed with study and his evenings 
with one or two congenial friends. The middays on account 
of their heat at this season were not the best for sight-seeing; 
but the mornings and evenings sufficed. Removed from care, 
absorbed with books and friends, sweet peaceful days, — he 
always remembered those three months in Rome as one of the 
delightful periods of his life. 

From Rome he went to Florence, passing four days and a 
half on the road, a journey now witli the aid of railroads easily 
made in an afternoon. But then it was made by coach. Among 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER S7 

liis travelling companions was Signor Ottavio Gigli, with whom 
lie became well acquainted. He was a young scholar, of about 
Sumner's age, engaged in literary pursuits and well acquainted 
in Rome and Florence. At the latter place he introduced 
Sumner to several authors of note. The friend in Florence, 
whom Sumner most enjoyed was Horatio Greenough, an Ameri- 
can sculptor, then in the full tide of his career. He was en- 
gaged upon a statue of Washington and a bas-relief, " The 
Rescue ", both for the Capitol. Sumner admired both, es- 
pecially the latter. 

" It is intended to represent," he wrote, " the surprise of a 
white settlement by the Indians. On the ground is a mother 
clasping her child, in order to save it from the uplifted toma- 
hawk of an Indian who stands over her, but whose hand is 
arrested, by a fearless settler, who is represented on a rock, 
so that the upper half of his body appears above the Indian. * * 
The woman is on the ground, so that she does not conceal the 
Indian, who is naked, except an accidental fold about his loins, 
and the settler, who appears above the savage, restraining his 
fury, is dressed in a hunter's shirt and cap. The passions are 
various, — the child, the mother, the father, the husband, the 
savage, the defender, etc. ; all the various characters being 
blended in the group." The piece as completed now adorns the 
east front of the Capitol at Washington, 

Sumner ranked Greenough as a man of eminence in his pro- 
fession, superior to any other artist then living. He was a man 
of infinite pains. His " Washington " was on his hands eight 
years and " The Rescue " fourteen. " They build for im- 
mortality," Sumner wrote " who calmly dedicate to a work so 
much time." Sumner also met Powers, another American 
sculptor, at Florence, and spent some time at his studio. He 
did not, however, admire his work so much. But wherever he 
went, his heart still turned to Crawford. He sought to interest 
others in him. At his solicitation, Gigli promised to visit him 
and write of his work, in some Italian journals. 

From Florence, Sumner went to Venice, stopping by the 
way successively at Bologna, Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua. At 
Venice, he spent a week, plying her watery ways, while the 
gondoliers timed the strokes of their oars to the music of their 
songs. As he stepped into his boat one day a little boy asked 
him if he should not go along and sing Tasso. It was an en- 
chanting place and he gave himself up to the enjoyment of it. 
He attended the theatres and operas and strolled under the ar- 
cades of the great Piazza. He had brought letters to some of 
the influential people but they were left undisturbed in his port- 



88 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

folio. His time was too short and the beauties of the ancient 
and decaying capital too attractive to neglect them, for the ac- 
quaintance of an hour. 

He left Venice on the thirtieth of September, 1839, for Milan, 
passing on the way through Padua, Verona, Brescia and Ber- 
gamo, travelling by coach two nights and a day. The first 
part of the journey was through a blinding rain. " All that 
night," he wrote, " we rode in the midst of a tremendous 
storm. It is exciting to rattle over the pavements of villages, 
tovrns and cities in the dead of nights; to catch, perhaps, a 
solitary light shining from the room of some watcher, ' like 
a good deed in a naughty world ; ' and when you arrive at the 
gates of a city, the postilion winds his horn, and the heavy 
portals are swung open, it seems like a vision of romance. Nor 
is it less exciting in earlier evening, when the shops and streets 
are bright with light, and people throng the streets, to dash 
along." Sumner had tasked himself, while in Italy to six 
hours' study of the language each day and he continued it 
through his days of journeying. If his companions were weary 
or tedious, or the scenery uninteresting, his book was at hand 
and he turned to it. He was ready to lay it aside when any- 
thing of interest appeared. 

It is curious to note the books he read while in Italy. 
"Dante," Tasso's " GerusaleitiiDO." Boccaccio's "Decameron," 
Politian's " Eime," the tragedies of Alfieri, the principal 
dramas of Metastasio, Lanzi's " Stonia Pittorica," Machiavelli's 
" Principe ", Tasso's " Aminta ", Guarini's " Pastor Fido ", 
some of Monti, of Pindemonte, of Parini, Botta's histories, 
Boccrescio's " Corbaccio " and " Fiammetta ". These were read 
before he left Eome. After that he read : Manzoni's " Promissi 
Sposi ", Petrarch's " Eime ", Ariosto, all of Machiavelli except 
his tract on " War ", Guicciardini's " Storia ", Manzoni's trag- 
edies and " Eime ", the principal plays of Niccolini, Nota and 
Goldoni, the autobiography of Alfieri. Besides this he read the 
newspapers, American, English, French and Italian that came 
in his way. 

Sumner reached Milan on the morning of October second and 
remained there until the sixth. At noon of that day, Sunday, 
he left by the mail coach for Munich, going by way of the 
Stelvio Pass, over the Alps to Innsbruck. A friend whose ac- 
quaintance he made in Milan offered him a seat in his private 
carriage, for the journey to Munich, a distance of about five 
hundred miles, but he put aside the tempting offer and chose 
instead the slower and less luxurious public conveyance that he 
jnight mingle more with people along the road and pick up their 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 89 

language and customs. The road led him through the mag- 
nificent scenery of the Alps, surpassing any he had seen before. 
It lay through the region of the glaciers and perpetual snow. 
At midnight they halted for a little sleep at Santa Maria, a 
thousand feet below the summit. Though twelve hours before 
he had left the plains of Lombardy, glowing with the warmth 
and sunshine of a beautiful autumn day, he slept that night, 
amid sharp winter, in an inn, with double windows, under 
heavy coverings on his bed, to which he added the weight of his 
cloak. And yet he was so bitter cold, that before morning he 
was glad to warm himself, by ascending the mountain on foot. 
He reached the highest point, eight thousand nine hundred 
feet above the sea, and crossed the Italian boundary just as the 
morning sun was gilding the tops of the mountains. 

It was here, with dazzling glaciers near, that he bade fare- 
well to Italy. The boundary was marked by a column, inscribed 
on one side " Eegno Lombardo ", on the other " Tyrolese Aus- 
tria ". He had passed it some distance when the thought came 
to his mind that he was leaving Italy ; he hurried back to the 
border line, ''looked in vain for those beautiful fields which 
seemed Elysian " to memory, said to himself that he should 
never see them again and taking off his hat made a last salute. 
His sole companion was '" an elderly, learned, lean, pragmatical 
German ". He heard his parting words and at once turned in 
the contrary direction and doffing his straw hat that covered his 
head, ejaculated ; " Et moi je salue I'Allemagne." 

" And yet," Sumner wrote to Greene, " I must again go to 
Italy, Have I left it forever ? How charming it seems in my 
mind's eye ! Pictures, statues, poetry, all come across my soul 
with ravishing power. Where do these words come from? 
They are of the thousand verses that are hymning through my 
mind with a music like that of the 'Dorian flutes and soft 
recorders'. All this is your heritage; to me is unchanging 
drudgery, where there are no flowers to pluck by the wayside, 
no green sprigs, fresh myrtle, hanging vines, — but the great 
grindstone of the law. There I must work. Sisyphus ' rolled 
the rock reluctant up the hill ', and I am going home to do the 
same." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE JOURNEY THROUGH AUSTRIA — VIENNA — METTERNICH — 

BERLIN SAVIGNY HEIDELBERG, MITTERMAIER, THIBAUT 

LONDON AGAIN — HOME — RETROSPECT OF TRIP 

Sumner turned his face to the North. The prim little vil- 
lages of the Tyrol, nestling among spurs of the Alps, with an 
air of antiquity about them, as his coach descended the mount- 
ains and whirled through them, looked like pictures of happy 
homelife. Nothing could be cleaner. Groups of happy children 
played in their streets, contented old men sat, in the peaceful 
autumn days, by the cottage doors. Laughing girls with fresh, 
German complexions and comely figures stole quiet glances at 
the strangers. At one of the stops of the coach, a fair Tyrolese, 
a little more daring and perhaps more fun-loving than the 
others, invited Sumner, through an interpreter, to waltz with 
her, to the music of some wandering Hungarians. Whether he 
accepted her challenge, he did not record. Perhaps not know- 
ing how to waltz, he put it so, being too chivalrous to say that 
he declined. 

He reached Innsbruck, Wednesday morning at ten o'clock, 
having spent three days and three nights on the journey from 
Milan. During this time he slept only three hours and a half 
out of the coach. He passed a day at Innsbruck and then 
journeyed on by the mail-coach a day and a half to Munich. 
Here he spent a week. A lady of his acquaintance from Bos- 
ton was there. Sumner remarked that she was all French in 
her affectations and aped Continental wa3's in her dress and 
manners, particularly in her hair. She appeared at table in 
the dress of a dinner party making a contrast with the simple 
costume of some English gentlefolks who were there, among 
them Disraeli and his wife. The conversation had turned to 
" Vivian Grey ", when she remarked, " There is a great deal 
written in the garrets of London." " I assure you," answered 
Disraeli, " ' Vivian Grey ' was not written in a garret." 

Sumner enjoyed Munich. He visited the king's gallery of 
sculpture and also sought out the paintings and frescoes upon 
which the city prided itself. One of the large frescoes by 
Cornelius represented Orpheus begging Eurydice of Plato. The 
group, especially the representation of Cerberus, impressed 
90 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 91 

Sumner as admirable. Knowing that Crawford was modelling 
an *' Orpheus ", he sent him a careful description of this fresco 
thinking it might furnish him some suggestions. Sumner had 
luedicted that if Crawford completed his " Orpheus ". as com- 
menced it would be one of the best works of modern times. It 
\\as completed and Sumner's prediction has been verified. Af- 
Ur its completion Sumner raised a subscription to procure a 
marble copy of it from Crawford to be placed in the city of 
IJoston. But of this mention will be made in a future connec- 
tion. 

Sumner left Munich on the twentieth of October. Another 
day and night in the stage brought him to Passau. With an 
English friend, he here hired a little gondola and in it they 
dropped gently down the Danube, with the current, seventy 
miles to the city of Linz. The delightful ride, on the smooth 
gliding surface of the river, between banks at every turn open- 
ing up beautiful scenery, was a grateful respite from the dusty 
jolting of the coach. At Linz, they hired a carriage and in two 
days and a half, on the twenty-fifth day of October, 1839, they 
entered Vienna. 

Sumner remained in Vienna a month, occupied, most of his 
time, in seeing the city and in studying the language. He went 
little into society and made few acquaintances. He was, how- 
ever, invited by Prince Metternich, then First Minister of 
Austria, to a reception at his palace. This he attended and 
was received with consideration. The Prince inquired particu- 
larly about America and showed much interest in the country. 
He asked if he knew the Austrian Minister and requested Sum- 
ner to call upon him when in Washington. 

The Prince was of a noble family and in early life repre- 
sented his country as Ambassador at Paris, where he met the 
Emperor ISTapoleon. He became his warm admirer. Soon af- 
ter his return from Paris he was made First Minister, and after 
the battle of Wagram he showed his capacity for management 
by bringing about the marriage of Napoleon to ]\Iarie Louise. 
He continued in office till 1848 and then resigned. When Sum- 
ner met him he was still in his prime, a large, fine-looking man 
and very affable. 

With the kindness of some other friends and the favor of the 
Prince, Sumner felt the way was open for him to see much of 
society in Vienna. It was then the " most select home of 
aristocracy ". But he left the city almost immediately. A 
night and a day of dismal riding brought him to Prague. Here 
he viewed its famous bridge and tower and the palace of its 
kings. Then another day and night brought him to Dresden, 



92 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

where the beautiful paintings reminded him of Italy. From 
Dresden to Leipsie he travelled by railroad, the only travelling 
he did in this way while in Europe. One of the railway car- 
riages was named " Washington ", — a name, he remarked, that 
seemed to have a charm about it, wherever he went. Irving, 
when travelling upon the Continent, noticed on one occasion, 
that he was received as a person of no consequence, until his 
host discovered that his first name was " Washington ", when 
inferring, from this circumstance, that he bore some relation- 
ship to the Father of his Country, he was thenceforth treated 
with, marked consideration. 

Another day and night from Leipsie brought Sumner to 
Berlin, where he remained until January ninth, 1840. Theo- 
dore S. Fay was then Secretary of Legation from the United 
States at Berlin. He was a young man near Sumner's age, 
quiet and unassuming in deportment, and of a lovable disposi- 
tion. He was possessed of some literary ability and the author 
of several volumes, one of which he then had in press. Between 
Sumner and Fay there grew up a lasting friendship. It was 
useful to Sumner during his month's stay in Berlin, for Fay 
had access to the best circles of the Prussian capital. He in- 
troduced Sumner both at Court and to the Professors of the 
university and thus his stay was made profitable and pleasant. 

In a few weeks Sumner could write : " I know everybody, and 
am engaged every day." He had seen all the distinguished 
Professors and had received some of them in his room. He 
knew Raumer and Ranke, the historians ; of these he preferred 
Ranke, who had the most vivacity, humor and, as Sumner 
thought, genius. His "History of the Popes" was widely 
known and read and was being translated into English. Alex- 
ander von Humboldt, then engaged upon his " Cosmos ", re- 
ceived him kindly. He was the reputed head of conversers in 
Germany and in this respect Sumner described him to his 
friends as, like Judge Story, "rapid, continuous, unflagging, 
lively, various ". He had read Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella " and he and Ranke both spoke in the highest terms of it 
to Sumner. Humboldt was also an admirer of Edward Everett 
of Boston. 

But the Professor, in the university, of whom Sumner gave 
the fullest description was Savigny. Sumner's still nourished 
ambition for a career in the Harvard Law School, would make 
this natural. Savigny was, at this time, at the head of the 
law department of the University of Berlin and Sumner con- 
sidered him, by common consent, the leading authority on juris- 
prudence in Germany and, in truth, upon the whole Continent. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 93 

He was of noble birth and from early manhood had been a 
Professor of Law in various universities. From 1842 to 1848 
he was Minister of Justice of the Empire. But his title to 
fame rests principally on his published works, particularly his 
work " On Obligations ". 

In personal appearance and manner Sumner thought he re- 
sembled Webster, more than any person he had ever seen. He 
was taller and not quite so stout, but there was the same dark 
face and hair and eyes ; as he sat by Sumner and he caught 
his voice, he was startled by the resemblance to the Massachu- 
setts Senator's. Savigny and Humboldt belonged to the society 
of Berlin, and were sought for, in the court and diplomatic 
circles, a distinction the other professors did not enjoy. 

Sumner had looked forward to an acquaintance with Savigny. 
He was one of the European authorities upon the question of 
codification. More than twenty years before he had published 
a reply to Thibaut's argument in favor of a code. In Paris, 
Sumner was told, that he had modified his views upon this sub- 
ject, but when he came to converse with him he was sorry to 
find that his informants were mistaken. He was as firm as 
ever in his opposition to codes. He listened kindly to Sumner's 
views on the subject, but when done, seemed unshaken in his 
own conclusions. He had read Judge Story's work on the 
" Conflict of Laws " and expressed his surprise that he was not 
on the Massachusetts committee to codify the Criminal Law, 
not reflecting that his other more important duties would pre- 
vent him from taking an appointment that would involve so 
much labor. 

Through the kind offices of his friend Fay, Sumner met most 
of the foreign Ministers resident at Berlin and the diplomatic 
corps. He was kindly received by the Crown Prince and Prince 
William, both of whom became Emperors of Prussia, and their 
princesses. The Crown Prince seemed very cordial and in- 
quired about the summers of New England and thought they 
must be magnificent. Sumner answered that he had thought 
so too, till he had been in Italy. But after all, Ranke, Hum- 
boldt, Savigny, great names still among the Germans, the ele- 
gant historian of the Popes, the author of Cosmos and the mas- 
ter of German jurisprudence, — these were the men Sumner 
admired ! He knew them all ! 

From Berlin Sumner went to Leipsic, Weimar, Gotha, 
Frankfort and then to Heidelberg. He remained five weeks at 
Heidelberg, studying, reading and talking German. He en- 
joyed the ancient town beautifully located on the river ISTeckar, 
ill the province of Baden, noted for its castle, the largest in 



94 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Germany, falling into decay, bnt rendered more attractive by 
the tints of its fading glory, and for its university, the oldest 
in Germany, founded in 1356, a worthy rival of that of Berlin. 
It had a greater reputation abroad, owing to the foreign stu- 
dents, who were attracted in great numbers to it, by the cheap- 
ness of living. Sumner humorously wrote that he had a hun- 
dred dollars and doubted not he was the richest person in the 
place. Professor Thibaut called him their " grand seigneur." 

Sumner always felt at home when near a great university. 
He had been so constantly about Harvard. It is curious to 
note how his travels tended to Oxford, Cambridge, the Parisian 
Lecture Eooms, Berlin and Heidelberg and how he coveted an 
acquaintance among their professors. There is little mention to 
be found, in his letters, or diary of the trip, of the great states- 
men of Europe. In the little that is said of them, there is still 
less of their character as statesmen, but the mention is mostly 
of them as men or as the owners of great houses or large es- 
tates. But his letters abound in references to books and schools. 
" You have thrown out some hints," he wrote Professor Green- 
leaf, " with regard to my occupying a place with you and the 
Judge at Cambridge. You know well that my heart yearns 
fondly for that place." His thoughts were all of a career in the 
Law School and as a law writer. A career in statesmanship 
seemed to be as far as any from him. How little he realized 
what the future had in store for him ! 

While editing the Jurist he had been brought into con- 
tact with Professor Mittermaier of Heidelberg. They had ex- 
changed letters on subjects of mutual interest and the Profes- 
sor had been asked to contribute to the Jurist. They now 
met for the first time and Sumner became intimate with him 
and his family. He had three bright boys for whom Sumner 
formed an attachment; one, the assistant of his father, died 
soon after Sumner's return from Europe, and in the corre- 
spondence, which was still continued with the father, he unbos- 
omed his grief. 

x\t Mittermaier's house Sumner met Professor Thibaut then 
near the end of his life. He was the most eminent advocate 
of codification in Europe, His father was a soldier and the 
son was designed for the same profession, but after one short 
campaign he abandoned it for his studies. As a young man, 
he was strong, finely formed, with a handsome face and head, 
enthusiastic in his studies and equally so in athletics. He be- 
came one of the first scliolars in the university. After taking 
his degree he became successively Professor of Law atKehl, Jena 
and Heidelberg, Sumner considered him second in attainments 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 95 

only to Savigny. He early advocated a code for Germany and 
finally secured the adoption of one. Sumner considered himself 
fortunate, in being able to discuss the subject of codification 
with the heads of the two great schools, for and against it, Thi- 
baut and Savigny. He heard their views from their own lips 
and had the honor of receiving calls from both of them in his 
room. 

The practice of duelling was then at its height in the uni- 
versity. Sumner saw three duels with swords. The swords 
were first taken to a grindstone where they were ground sharp. 
With these weapons the combatants then met in an assembly- 
room where the students in large numbers were congregated, 
smoking and drinking. A doctor was also in attendance who 
very coolly smoked all the while. Thus attended, the combat 
proceeded, often with serious results. In one of them a com- 
Ijatant lost his nose, it being cut off by his antagonist at one 
blow. It was afterwards sewed on by the doctor for him; but 
he brushed it off twice in the night. 

The practice of smoking was universal. " Everybody in Ger- 
many smokes," Sumner observed ; " I doubt not, I am the 
only man above ten years old now in the country who does not." 
It was unpleasant for him, who did not use tobacco in any 
form. He often found himself shut up in a carriage where 
every one was smoking. It will readily be imagined how dis- 
tasteful this was to him, when it is remembered he could hardly 
endure the confinement of a coach without the smoke. In his 
earlier days he was obliged to ride on the outside. 

From Heidelberg, Sumner went down the Rhine to Cologne, 
thence to Brussels, Antwerp, London, where he arrived on the 
seventeenth of March and remained till the fourth of April. 
This was longer than he at first intended. His purpose was to 
stay only a few days, long enough to see two or three friends 
and arrange for his passage home. But how could he resist? 
" I am already," he wrote, " after twenty-four hours' presence, 
nailed for to-morrow to see the Duchess of Sutherland in her 
magnificent palace; for the next day to dine with Parkes to 
meet Charles Austin ; the next to breakfast with Sutton Sharpe, 
to meet some of my friends of the Chancery bar, then to dine 
with the Earl of Carlisle ; and the next day with Bates. Mor- 
peth wishes me to see the Lansdownes and Hollands, but I de- 
cline." 

The time slipped away. He knew so many people; had 
formed such pleasant acquaintances and there was still so much 
of interest to him in London, that it was hard to break away. 
London, is more bewitching than ever," he wrote. " Have al- 



96 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ready seen many people, — the Lansdownes; Duke and Duchess 
of Sutherland (the most beautiful woman in the world) ; Mrs. 
Norton, Lady Seymour (both very beautiful) ; Hay ward; Syd- 
ney Smith; Senior; Fonblanque; Milnes; Milman; the Grotes; 
Charles Austin (more brilliant than ever) ; the Wortleys, etc. 
But I must stop. I must now go to breakfast with Sydney 
Smith ; to-morrow with Rogers ; next day with dear Sir Robert 
Inglis; the next day with Milnes." This is a formidable list of 
well known people and shows Sumner's popularity in England. 
His last dinner was with Hallam, where were Milman, Bab- 
bage, Hayward, Francis Horner, etc. He parted with many 
friends and received the most affectionate good wishes. Lady 
Carlisle and Ingham shed tears in parting with him. 

He engaged passage for New York by the " Wellington " 
and embarked at Portsmouth, having as a fellow passenger 
Dr. J. G. Cogswell who was in Europe to place a grandson of 
John Jacob Astor in school and to make purchases for the 
newly projected Astor Library of New York, of which he had 
been chosen Librarian. Other fellow passengers were N. P. 
Willis, his wife and her sister. He reached New York on May 
third, 1840, after an absence of two years and five months. 
The journey cost him something more than five thousand 
dollars. 

But it was one of the most profitable periods of his life, 
hardly less so than his years in college. He had studied and 
mastered successively the French, Italian and German lan- 
guages. He had seen the great countries of Europe and mingled 
with their people. He had visited their great universities, 
made the acquaintance of their professors and saw their methods 
of instruction. He had seen the most famous art treasures of 
the world, the finest architecture of the present and the remains 
of the greatest of the past. But above all he had seen and heard 
and known many of the greatest men then living and whose 
names are now historic. He had before read their works and 
knew them, but what was this as compared with seeing the au- 
thors, meeting them in their homes and talking with them, face 
to face, so that every mention of them thereafter was to awaken 
a train of pleasant memories. It was largely due to the culture 
of those two years and a half that Sumner came afterwards to 
be known as the most accomplished man in the American 
Senate. 



CHAPTER X 

WELCOME HOME — CAMPAIGN OF 1840 — RESUMES WORK — OF- 
FICE OF HILLARD AND SUMNER — PHILLIPS MATCH CASE — 
RIGHT OF SEARCH — PRACTICE — UNPROFESSIONAL STUDIES 

From New York, Sumner went directly to the family resi- 
dence in Boston. This was to be his future home. 

A warm welcome awaited him. There had always been a 
strong affection between him and his mother and the death of 
his father seemed to make the tie even stronger than before. 
He was her eldest son, bearing his father's name, the best edu- 
cated and the most substantial of all her children. She felt that 
she must look to him, as her adviser and mainstay. His sisters, 
Mary and Julia, had grown to be young women, during his 
absence. The loving expectancy with which they had hoped to 
entwine his life with theirs reached out to him at the thresh- 
old. His former law partner, Hillard, who alone had kept the 
office at Number Four Court Street, in his absence, was re- 
joiced at the prospect of dividing its confinement as well as 
its cares and labors. Sumner was a warm-hearted, genial, com- 
panionable man and a host of friends were glad to welcome 
him back. In homes where he had been familiar, as in Judge 
Story's and Professor Greenleaf's, he was received, as before, al- 
most as one of the family. 

The first weeks after his arrival were occupied with renewing 
acquaintances, calling upon friends and talking over the ex- 
periences of his trip. He felt little inclination to return to work 
at once, for his studies abroad, in Italy and Germany, had 
been so laborious that he needed rest and time to gather his 
thoughts home from his trip. The attorneys and judges were 
soon to be off on their summer's vacation and the courts being 
closed, little could be done then in a law office. During 
August, he spent a few days at Nahant, a seaside resort about 
fourteen miles from Boston, where he dined with William H. 
Prescott. Later in the same month he drove in a gig to Lan- 
caster, a small village near Worcester, with Felton, who went 
to spend Sunday with his wife. On the way they stopped at 
Concord and dined with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When Sumner 
went to Europe, Emerson had given him a letter of introduc- 
tion to Thomas Carlyle and each enjoyed this opportunity of 
97 



98 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

exchanging their recollections of him. Emerson was a constant 
correspondent of Carlyle. Sumner afterwards recalled Emer- 
son's two interesting children, a boy and a girl, the latter 
playfully called by her father his " honeycomb". 

The year of Sumner's return, from Europe, 1840, will ever 
be memorable for one of the most remarkable campaigns in 
the history of American politics. The Whigs had been out of 
office for twelve years and were correspondingly hungry; the 
Democrats having been as long successful were now under the 
control of a President who was a consummate political leader 
and they bore themselves with confident superiority. The 
Whigs nominated as their candidate William H. Harrison and 
the Democrats renominated Martin Van Buren. Harrison 
could be paraded as a " military hero," for he had about a 
quarter of a century before, been a soldier in the war of 1812, 
and in some skirmishes with the Indians, notably at Tippe- 
canoe, had borne himself creditably. He could also pose as a 
political martyr, for he had been rather roughly recalled from a 
foreign mission, by Jackson to make a place for one of his 
favorites. At the time of his nomination he was living quietly 
on his farm in Ohio. 

Corruption in public office was rampant. Van Buren was 
from the State of New York. Unfortunately the Collector of 
Customs at New York City had been found to be a defaulter 
to the amount of $1,125,000, and the United States District 
Attorney for the State of New York was $72,000 short. Harri- 
son was the very man to be called, like Cincinnatus, from his 
plough to save the nation. There probably never was a political 
campaign of more noise and less sense than that which fol- 
lowed. Half the nation seemed to be turned loose to follow 
brass bands, in processions, and sing the doggerel of campaign 
song books. The Democrats in derision pointed to Harrison as 
a rough farmer, tilling his own land, living in a log cabin and 
drinking hard cider. The Whigs returned the taunt by saying, 
that Van Buren was living in a mansion, surrounded by thugs 
and jobbers and eating out of " gold spoons ". The jibe of the 
Democrats was at least unfortunate. Thenceforward a log 
cabin, mounted on wheels, its sides decorated with coon-skins 
and a cider barrel at the door, the whole drawn by numerous 
teams of horses, swelled every procession. The cabin and cider 
barrel adorned every badge. They were the drawing symbols of 
a plain, honest life and the whole nation seemed to be marching 
to the tune of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too ". Eloquence too 
was plentiful. A meeting was appointed in some grove, the 
people gathered in long processions, an ox was roasted whole. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 99 

to feed the assembled multitude and they were addressed by 
such orators as Henry Clay and Tom Corwin of the West and 
Daniel Webster of the East. The famous passage of Webster's ; 
" It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but some 
of my brothers and sisters were ", so familiar now to every 
schoolboy, was one of the products of the campaign. 

Yet Sumner, at thirty years of age, was a silent witness of all 
this. The circumstance shows how little interest he then felt 
in the great arena in which his life was to be cast. Thus far 
he had taken no active jjart in politics. His father's inclination 
had been to the Whig party and this naturally was his. It was 
also natural for him to be repelled by the cries of corruption 
then raised against the Democrats and to be attracted by the 
pledges of the Whigs to reform the public service. The superior 
culture of such men as Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams 
and Edward Everett, appealed strongly to the educated young 
men of Boston, in the choice of a party. Sumner probably 
voted for Harrison ; but he had been abroad for two years and 
love of country rather than of any party was his predominant 
feeling, and it is not certainly known how he voted. He en- 
joyed many of the ludicrous phases of the campaign; but 
deprecated so much strife and faction as he saw. " There is so 
much passion," he wrote, " and so little principle, so much de- 
votion to party and so little to country in both parties, that I 
think we have occasion for anxiety." 

With the return of September, Sumner settled down to work 
in his office. The partnership with Hillard had never been 
dissolved, but as he had done all the work during Sumner's ab- 
sence, he was allowed all the earnings. Sumner was resolved 
to be diligent. He wished to earn money and pay the debt he 
had contracted by his trip to Europe. He declined an invita- 
tion to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Bowdoin Col- 
lege, because it would require time that he could not now afford 
to lose from his business. He was punctually in his office from 
nine o'clock in the morning until six in the evening, with only 
the interval of an hour for dinner. He was at work upon the 
tliird volume of " Sumner's Eeports," of Judge Story's decis- 
ions in the U. S. Circuit Court, which he got ready for the press 
by the middle of December. This with his professional en- 
gagements occupied his time. He did not appear in the trial 
of many cases. The practice of the finn of Hillard and Sum- 
ner does not seem ever to have been large. But his preparation 
for a trial was elaborate. He read widely and made numerous 
citations of authorities, in support of the positions he took in 



100 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the trial of his cases. He was always inclined to be more pro- 
fuse than exact. 

They had several friends who were instrumental in bringing 
them business. Eufus Choate, then in the enjoyment of well 
deserved fame as an advocate, had liis office in the same build- 
ing with theirs and occasionally dropped into their rooms, to 
indulge his fondness for the society of young men and his taste 
for talk upon literary subjects. Sumner's brief estimate of 
Choate, whose fame is fast becoming traditional, is interesting 
as the contemporary judgment of one who often witnessed his 
efforts. " His position here," he wrote, " is very firm. He is the 
leader of our bar, with an overwhelming superfluity of business, 
with a strong taste for books and learned men, with great 
amiableness of character, with uncommon eloquence and untir- 
ing industry." Choate and Webster procured Hillard and 
Sumner's employment in the boundary dispute between Massa- 
chusetts and Ehode Island. William W. Story was a student 
in their office and his father. Judge Story, when not absent from 
home engaged in his duties as a judge of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, frequently dropped in on them. They 
sometimes got clients who came to them because they thought 
that Judge Story's friendsliip for them might influence his 
judgment in their favor. Professor Greenleaf still kept a desk 
in the office and there met the clients he served. He procured 
their employment occasionally, notably in a suit brought to 
contest the patent right of the Phillips friction match, a litiga- 
tion which was in court in more than one form and continued 
through four years. Professor Greenleaf withdrew from it 
early, leaving the responsibility of it with them. 

In this case Sumner took an unusual interest. The stake 
at issue was large and the question a close one. It was to be 
tried before Judge Story in tlie United States Courts. A suit 
was brought to enjoin the use of the patent on a friction match, 
on the ground of the prior knowledge and use of the invention, 
by Sumner's client. Another suit was also brought, by his 
client, to recover damages for the invasion of his right to the 
invention. Depositions were taken by Sumner at various places 
and the testimony became very voluminous. The suit to enjoin 
the defendant was not tried until December, 1843, and the 
damage case not until 18-i4, in November. Judge Story de- 
cided the injunction case against Sumner's client. In the 
damage case they were more successful. It was tried to a jury 
and Sumner's client recovered a verdict. Judge Story ruled 
upon several important questions, in the trial of this case, 
against Sumner's client ; and he was annoyed at Sumner's per- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 101 

sistency, in pressing them. But the jury seems to have tliought 
more favorably of the case than the Judge. A motion to set 
aside the verdict was made, but, jDending its hearing, the case 
was settled. Sumner took a leading part in the trial and it is 
considered his principal effort at the bar. He was opposed by 
Franklin Dexter, one of the ablest attorneys in Boston. 

Another professional engagement that interested Sumner 
grew out of the right claimed by Great Britain to search Amer- 
ican vessels. The slave trade had been abolished by England 
and all her vessels were forbidden from engaging in the traffic. 
She had a perfect right to search her own vessels, and see that 
the laws of England were not violated by her subjects ; and she 
freely exercised this right. But some of her vessels still en- 
gaged in the traffic. To elude detection, such vessels when 
pursued would sometimes hoist the American flag and, under 
it, claim immunity from search. To break up this practice 
England adopted the rule and claimed the right to board every 
vessel upon the high seas, suspected and, by an examination of 
her papers, determine whether she was an English vessel or not. 
The result was that many American vessels were overhauled 
and detained and subjected to annoyances. A similar claim on 
the part of England had before this resulted in a war between 
the two countries, and this threatened to renew it. During the 
continuance of the practice, British vessels that had made these 
searches occasionally put into the port of Boston and were 
sued for damages by the owners of the vessels they had detained. 
The British consul retained Hillard and Sumner to defend 
them. Sumner took a deep interest in these cases and made a 
careful study of the international law upon the subject. With 
a view to influencing public opinion he wrote and published in 
the Boston Advertiser an elaborate argument in support of 
the right of " inquiry " as he called it. This article was replied 
to through the press and he published a rejoinder. 

The subject has an additional interest here. It was another 
event in Sumner's life that called his attention to the enor- 
mities of the slave trade and aided in establishing his convic- 
tions early. The debate he heard in the House of Commons, 
upon the bill to abolish slavery in England, and his association 
with Lord Brougham, will be remembered in the same connec- 
tion. These things, with the study they induced him to give 
the subject of slavery, prepared him afterwards to take the tide 
at its flood that led him on to fame and fortune. He had the 
deep conviction of leadership at a time when other men faltered. 
He was prepared to go right on, while they hesitated, to debate 
and by debating to be convinced that he was right. 



iO^ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

But these were suits of exceptional interest with Hillard and 
Sumner. Their practice had nothing unusual, in either its char- 
acter or its extent. It was not better than that of other young 
men and indeed was hardly so good. It consisted generally of 
making collections, of defending persons charged with petty 
crimes, before magistrates, and of writing depositions, where 
complaint was sometimes made that Sumner was not content 
to let tlie attorneys ask questions, but insisted upon asking 
some himself, so as to see that the witness told the whole truth. 
Sometimes like other young men they had other more impor- 
tant business. Once we know he charged a fee of six hundred 
dollars and his client agreed that it was no more than he had 
earned; a good fee even for these latter days. But such pay 
came seldom. His heart was not in his lawsuits. He felt that 
while by tliese things he was earning a living, his mind and 
heart were not being improved or invigorated. 

He was ambitious ; he was plunging nightly into history and 
biography ; his thoughts were busy with the great and, in most 
cases, now impossible exemplars of history. He had a strong 
desire to fix his own name permanently in the remembrance of 
posterity. He felt that he was not accomplishing this, that 
none of the work he was doing, in his profession, could give him 
any enduring fame, that it might be well enough, for one who 
was intent merely on gaining a livelihood, but that he, with his 
ideals, with the resolutions he had formed for lofty endeavor 
and noble achievements, ought not to be satisfied with it. 

At this time Sumner did not seem to desire public office. The 
sacrifice of personal independence, which he thought it involved, 
was distasteful. His thoughts were more of books and author- 
ship and literary distinction. In 1843, a vacancy occurred in 
the office of Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. He had some experience of this kind, in re- 
porting the decisions of Judge Story upon the circuit. The' 
judge desired to secure his appointment to fill this vacancy. 
At his suggestion Sumner considered the matter and while de- 
clining to seek the office he expressed his willingness to accept it, 
if it was offered to him. But he did not secure the appointment. 
It was made in the absence of Judge Story from Washington 
and unexpectedly. It would not have been a very fortunate 
appointment. Sumner was not a sufficiently accurate and 
painstaking and technical lawyer, and the other members of 
the court probably felt so and hence forestalled his appointment. 
But it was a disappointment to him and Judge Story, though it 
was fortunate for Sumner. The position is a permanent one 
with a moderate salary and would, in all probability, have occu- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 103 

pied his time, giving him in return for it a comfortable living in 
a place of some dignity, till the productive period of his life was 
past. Had he obtained it, we would probably have known him 
by the print of his name upon the volumes he reported, but 
the enduring work he did in the Senate and his orations and 
published writings would have been lost. A kindlier Providence 
than he then saw, withheld it from him. 

This was a turning period in Sumner's life. His wish for 
a place in the Law School at Harvard was not so strong as it 
had been. His vision of distinction as a jurist or judge or 
writer on legal subjects was vanishing. His attention was being 
attracted more to practical men and measures aside from the 
law. He had thoughts of authorship in general literature, of 
history and kindred subjects. He was interested in educational 
reform. His friendships and associations aided to draw his 
attention to this subject. Lieber was a teacher in the South. 
Samuel G. Howe, in whose company he spent much of his 
leisure time, during the years following his return from Europe, 
was the superintendent of an institute for the education of 
the blind. Longfellow was a professor in Harvard. Seeing 
the greater culture of the higher classes in England, he urged 
raising the standard at Harvard. President Quincy, in an ad- 
dress before the Board of Overseers, afterwards urged that the 
requirements for graduation be increased and, though Sumner 
was unable to be present and witness the deliberations, upon 
the question, owing to a severe cold, he promptly wrote the 
President congratulating him upon the advanced stand he 
had taken. 

Sumner's days now were occupied in his office, but his nights, 
often till one or two o'clock, were spent in reading. His favor- 
ite subjects were history and biography, but he did not allow 
such books to exclude other and lighter ones. He cultivated 
a taste for whatever was catholic, in literature, and was, as 
he desired to be, a well-read man. He continually made 
notes of readings, in books kept for permanent use, thus pre- 
serving data and copies of passages which he admired and 
incidents, which might be used, in his own productions, by 
way of illustration. The notes which he thus made, were 
frequently used in his productions after he became a Senator. 

Much credit is to be given to his European trip for his 
love of reading. For years he had looked forward to such a 
journey and he secured it under such difficult circumstances 
as made him anxious to profit by it. He read history and 
biography carefully as one means of preparation for it. How 
could he hope for any great profit from his trip, without know- 



104 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ing the history of the countries he was to visit, where their 
great battles were fought, what were the turning events, 
what were their great names and for what were they cele- 
brated? These were wide subjects and gave scope for endless 
study. How could he meet and mingle with their eminent 
men, without being able to talk intelligently of what they 
talked about? How could he carry letters of introduction 
to such men without knowing something of their careers — if 
a Judge, of his decisions; if a Member of Parliament, of his 
politics ; if an author, of his books ? How could he hope to be 
successful in the society of these countries without being 
intelligent? These were questions that were suggested to 
him. To make this trip profitable, as he intended it should 
be, required preparation, by way of wide and careful reading, 
and such reading created a taste for good books. 

After his return he was stimulated to pursue his reading 
further; for then he had seen London and her Tower and 
Parliament and courts and schools; Scotland, with her Lochs 
and Highlands, her ruined abbeys, her Abbotsford and Edin- 
burgh ; Paris and Versailles ; Genoa, with her walls, " her 
mural crown, studded with towers;" Eome and Florence and 
Venice, with their treasures of art and architecture; Germany 
and Holland. He had seen and was acquainted with many 
of the greatest men in Europe. Every history of these countries 
he took up, referred to persons or places he knew and had 
seen. Therefore he plunged into books, with a new interest. 
The going to Europe had required of him constant study 
and preparation and had enlarged his reading. Seeing Europe 
had added interest to what he saw and stimulated him to 
read more widely of the persons and places he had visited. 

His heart still turned to these countries. " Give me 
fifteen hundred dollars a year," he wrote Longfellow, " and I 
will hie away to Florence, where in sight of what is most 
beautiful in art and with the most inspiring associations about 
me, I will feed on the ambrosia of life nor find the day long 
which I can give undisturbed to the great masters of human 
thought. Stop ! Say nothing of this or my professional 
chances will be up." It is a fact that in his office he was 
inclined to talk too much about Europe to persons who came 
in on business. It gave the impression that his heart was not 
in his work and was thought to have an unfavorable effect 
upon his practice. 

Sumner had numerous correspondents among his friends in 
Europe, — Hay ward, Professors Whewell and Mittermaier, 
Ingham, Lords Morpeth and Penman and Greenough and Craw- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 105 

ford and others. Some of them he heard from only occasionally 
and from others, Ingham, Mittermaier, Morpeth and Crawford, 
the letters were frequent. The latter had been his most 
intimate friends. Professor Mittermaier and Sumner corre- 
sponded in German and made exchanges of books. In 1841 
both Ingham and Lord Morpeth were candidates for seats in 
the House of Commons, though both failed of election; Sum- 
ner watched the campaign with interest and regretted their 
defeat. Instead of Ingham, Milnes, another of Sumner's 
friends, was elected. 

Lord Morpeth shortly after his defeat, came to the United 
States and spent several months travelling in the West and 
South and extending his journey into Canada. Sumner gave 
him letters to friends in other cities and met him in Boston 
and introduced him, went with him to places of interest and 
showed him many attentions. Longfellow, Sumner's friend, 
had him to dine, with Allston and Prescott, the evening of his 
arrival. And Sumner gave a dinner for him at the Tremont 
House. These attentions were kindly remembered by Lord 
Morpeth. 

The year after his return from Europe, Sumner rendered 
a service for his friend Crawford. It will be remembered 
that he had admired his " Orpheus ", a bas-relief upon which 
he was engaged, when Sumner was in Rome. In 1841, he raised 
a subscription of twenty-five hundred dollars to purchase it, 
for the Boston Athenaeum. Crawford gratefully acknowledged 
the kindness, by executing a bust of Sumner and presenting 
it to him. To awaken public interest in the " Orpheus," Sum- 
ner wrote an article, published in the Boston papers, the 
Democratic Eeview and Advertiser, in which he narrated the 
legend that furnished the subject for the study and gave a 
description of the work and its merits. 

The " Orpheus " was not finished at the time it was ordered 
and did not reach Boston till 1843. On opening the box, 
Sumner was much disappointed to find it had been broken in 
the passage. But it was restored, so that the break was scarcely 
noticeable. It was not open to general exhibition, until the 
summer of 1844, though during the preceding winter it was 
privately exhibited to a few persons of some art attainments. 
They praised it enthusiastically and Sumner conveyed this 
intelligence to Crawford. In June, 1844, it was opened to the 
public with an exhibition, planned by Sumner, of all Crawford's 
works then in Boston, making the " Orpheus " the central piece. 
The bust of himself was included in the collection. He was 
not satisfied with the lights which the Athengeum afforded and 



106 ^^^E ^^ CHARLES SUMNER 

to show the work to better advantage, he had a temporary 
booth built and fitted up adjoining the Athengeum, for the 
exhibition. It was all done by Sumner to awaken an interest 
in Crawford and his work as an artist. Sumner felt that he 
was not appreciated as his ability deserved. The purpose was 
accomplished and Crawford's reputation as an artist was 
established in Boston. The " Orpheus " still remains there 
a monument to the beautiful relation of two men, each now 
celebrated, but both then young and struggling for position. 

Crawford never forgot the kindness thus done him, at a 
time when he needed such help. His principal works, his 
bronze statue of Beethoven, executed for the Boston Music 
Hall, his colossal equestrian statue of Washington on the 
grounds of the State Capitol at Kichmond, Va., and his stat- 
uary in marble and bronze for the National Capitol at Wash- 
ington, were all executed at a later period. Before he died 
orders came to him in abundance and his fame as one of the 
greatest of American artists is now secure. But to the end, 
his heart went out in gratitude for the help and encourage- 
ment that thus came, in the days of struggle. Writing to 
George Sumner, the brother of Charles, he declared that he 
had placed this friendship nearer his heart than any other 
in the United States except only that for his own family. 

George was at tliis time in Europe. His travels were pro- 
tracted beyond what Charles thought to be for his good 
and he did not hesitate to say so. His time was not idled 
away. He visited Holland and England and made a careful 
study from original sources of the early lives and character 
of the first Puritan settlers of New England. He recorded 
the result of his studies, and his manuscripts have since been 
deposited with the Massachusetts Historical Society and are 
referred to now with confidence, by writers upon the Puritan 
period of American history. George's tastes were more ex- 
clusive than Charles'. Politics and history interested him, 
but for general literature he had less fondness and he was 
disposed to overlook the merits of men of a more imaginative 
turn of mind than himself. He visited Eome and met and 
liked Crawford. But he preferred Paris to London and crit- 
icised Charles for his too great fondness for England and some 
of his English friends. Charles replied to him in a letter 
which reveals a good deal of his own character. 

" You enjoy conversation," he wrote, " on politics, statistics 
and history. Do you sufficiently appreciate talent out of this 
walk? For instance, Kenyon does not care a pin for these 
topics; but he is exuberant with poetry and graceful anec- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 107 

dote; so that I must count him one of the most interesting 
men I have ever met. And I remember breakfasts at his 
house which were full of the most engaging conversation. . . . 
I like to find good in everything; and in all men of cultivated 
minds and hearts, thank God, there is a good deal of good to be 
found. In some it shows itself in one shape, and in some in 
another; some will select your favorite themes, while others 
enjoy ideality and its productions manifold." . . . 

'^ This world is full of harslmess. It is easier to censure 
than to praise ; the former is a gratification of our self-esteem ; 
while to praise seems, with minds too ambitious and un- 
generous, a tacit admission of superiority. It is a bane of 
society wherever I have known it, — and here in Boston as 
much as in London, — a perpetual seeking for something which 
will disparage or make ridiculous our neighbors. Their 
conduct is canvassed, and mean and selfish motives are at- 
tributed to them. Their foibles are dragged into day. I 
do not boast myself to be free from blame on this account; 
and yet I try to find what is good and beautiful in all that 
I see, and to judge my fellow creatures as I would have them 
judge me." 



CHAPTER XI 

IN SOCIETY — FRIENDS — THE MISSES WARD — HOWE — JULIA WARD 
— HOWE's MARRIAGE — LONGFELLOW — TILE PRESCOTTS — 

BANCROFT — WM. W, STORY — ALLSTON — CHANNING ADAMS 

THEIR INFLUENCE ON SUMNER — LITERARY PROJECTS OF 

FRIENDS — HABITS — WHY NOT MARRIED 

During the years succeeding his trip to Europe, Sumner 
was popular in Boston society. He had a fine presence and the 
easy address, whicli comes of familiarity with good company, 
besides the reputation for scholarly attainments which always 
counted for much in Boston, His sister Mary was then a 
beautiful young woman, tall, well-formed and graceful, a good 
dancer and of a lovely disposition, — the fairest of all his sisters. 
She was a great favorite with Charles and he took much pleas- 
ure in acting as her escort. At the time of his return, she 
was eighteen years of age and apparently in perfect health, 
though she died four years later, after a lingering illness of 
consumption. Julia, too, the youngest of the family, was thir- 
teen years old and was soon in society. The best homes in 
Boston were open to them. They attended parties and recep- 
tions together and the usual gatherings of young people. At 
that time horseback riding was a favorite amusement and 
his letters contain occasional references to excursions made, in 
this way, in the company of young ladies. 

After his death, his sister Julia wrote: "It seems but yes- 
terday that I was the happy, careless schoolgirl, recounting 
eagerly to his kindly, sympathetic ear at dinner the experiences 
of the morning at school, or going to him for help in my 
Latin lessons." While she was a student at Mr. Emerson's pri- 
vate school for young ladies, in Boston, the tragedian Macready 
played, in Boston, and Charles took her, night after night, to see 
his performances. It was the first really fine acting she had 
seen and it opened to her the wonderful beauties of Shakespeare. 
She never forgot the debt she owed him, to have thus opened a 
new world of delight. He had met and dined with Macready, 
was familiar with the plays and enthusiastic in pointing out 
the excellences in the interpretation of them. Sumner corre- 
sponded with Macready after his return to Europe. 

In January and February of ISl^i he visited his brother 
Albert in New York and spent a few days in Philadelphia. In 
108 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 109 

New York he met and dined with Halleck, Cogswell and Theo- 
dore Sedgwick and was again kindly received by Chancellor 
Kent. He wrote to Hillard that he had " had some pleasant 
dinners, seen some handsome women and been to two balls." 
It was on this visit to New York that he became acquainted 
with three sisters, Misses Ward, who lived on Bond Street near 
his brother Albert's residence. He was much attracted by their 
wit and beauty and might have easily conceived a tender senti- 
ment for one of them. But this, his circumstances, poor and in 
debt, with little income, compelled him to conceal. They were 
then beautiful, bright, vivacious girls, fond of society and music, 
prettily supporting one another, in their sallies of wit and 
laughter, and generally the centre of a circle of admirers. 
" The Three Graces " was the designation they acquired with 
Sumner and his friends. They were daughters of Mr. Samuel 
Ward, a banker of New York. Their mother, Julia Rush Ward 
was the author of some poems of merit. She was the daughter 
of Mr. B. C. Cutler, an eminent citizen of Boston. 

" The Three Graces " spent the following summer in Dor- 
chester, a suburb of Boston, Sumner wrote Lieber : " The 
three Misses Ward — a lovely triumvirate — are summering in 
Dorchester." He spent much time in their company. The 
following September he was again in New York, looking up 
evidence for his friction match case, but in his report to his 
partner of the progress he was making, among the dusty and 
dreary records of the clerk's office, he quietly mentions, facts 
of interest to him, that he had dined with Mr. Samuel Ward, 
his first day there, and that on the next day he dined with 
the Misses Ward ! 

And how all roads lead to New York ! In August, 1842, he 
writes to Longfellow, then in Europe : " I have been away on a 
short journey with my two sisters, Mary and Julia, and have 
enjoyed not a little their enjoyment of life and new scenes. 
Howe started in company. We went to Springfield ; thence 
made an excursion to Chicopee; thence to Lenox and Stock- 
bridge, where I left the girls to ramble about, while Howe 
and I started on a journey to New York, including Hell 
Gate, where we passed the chief of our time. The * Three 
Graces ' were bland and lovely." 

Sumner and Dr. Samuel G. Howe were fast friends then 
and they continued so for many years. There were times in 
Sumner's life when Howe was his greatest confidant. His 
opposition to slavery, at a later day, estranged many of his 
friends, but it never affected Howe. He was in full syiri- 
pathy with Sumner's purpose to destroy it and during this 



110 -^^^-^ 0^ CHARLES SUMNER 

period their friendship continued, more cordial than before. 
In 1846 Howe allowed himself to be nominated for Congress, 
by the opponents of slavery and the Mexican war, wdien there 
was no prospect for an election. 

He was a high-minded man, devoted to philanthropic pur- 
poses and pursuits and very like Sumner in many of his 
thoughts of life. He was ten years Sumner's senior. In his 
young manhood, he had spent seven years, as a soldier in aid 
of Greece, in her struggle against the Turks, for independence ; 
and had narrowly escaped death from one of their scimeters. 
He was in Paris in July, 1830, on his way home, when the 
French people rose in revolution against Charles the Tenth 
and drove him from his throne. Still by instinct the champion 
of the oppressed, he joined the cause of Lafayette and the 
people against the arbitrary rule of their King. His dis- 
regard of danger attracted the attention of Lafayette, who 
urged him not to expose himself, in this struggle that should 
be reserved for Frenchmen, but to save his life for the aid 
of his own country. Reaching home he studied medicine and 
quickly rising in his profession he was made Superintendent 
of the Boston Institution for the Blind. He devoted himself 
to this work with his characteristic enthusiasm. Beside 
his work for his own Institution he visited other states and 
sought to interest them in the establishment of similar found- 
ings. 

At this time Sumner and Howe were much in each other s so- 
ciety. They took frequent horseback rides and made excursions 
together to places near Boston. Sumner frequently passed the 
night wnth Howe at the Institution for the Blind, where they 
talked far into the nights, of European travel, of books and 
friends. Two years later Howe married Julia Ward, one of 
the " Tliree Graces." Sumner's friend Crawford married an- 
other. The third became Mrs. Maillard. Julia Ward Howe 
became the author of several books, " Passion Flowers ", 
" Words for the Hour ", a volume of reminiscences. Her best 
known poem is her " Battle Hymn of the Republic ". 

This hymn has since been set to music and is now sung as 
one of our national anthems. 

Mrs. Howe was no less firm in her friendship for Sumner 
than her husband. During his years of struggle against 
slavei7, they never ceased to uphold his hands. And when 
Brooks assaulted him in the Senate Chamber for w^ords uttered 
in his speech on the " Crime against Kansas ", she promptly 
condemned the outrage in a poem published in the " ISTew 
York Tribune." No words of sympathy came to Sumner 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER HI 

more welcome than hers. When he published the complete 
edition of his works he incorporated this poem in them as a 
note to the speech. 

Howe had taken the place in the " Five of Clubs " made 
vacant by Cleveland, who was wasting away with disease and 
soon to die. The Club continued its meetings, at the homes 
of its members. They met to talk of the events of the week, 
of new books and their own literary projects and to read and 
discuss a poem or an article that any of them had written for 
the press. They never doubted the fidelity of the members 
to one another and usually asked their criticism upon their 
productions, before they were given to the public. The meet- 
ings were furnished with refreshments, but they were spar- 
ingly used. Good cheer was plenty. They were bright in- 
telligent men, all well educated and capital conversers. The 
cheery laugh and abounding good spirits of Felton never 
failed to touch a responsive chord in the others. Besides 
Sumner and his partner Hillard there were Howe, and Felton, 
then Professor of Greek at Harvard and afterwards its 
President, and Henry W. Longfellow, the poet, then Harvard's 
Professor of Modern Languages and Literature. 

Sumner and Longfellow were close friends. Longfellow was 
born at Portland, Maine, the son of an attorney; and grad- 
uated at Bowdoin. After graduation he had commenced the 
study of law with his father, but being called to a professor- 
ship in Bowdoin he had fitted himself for the place, by three 
years study in Europe. In 1835, he was called to Harvard. 
He was four years Sumner's senior and still unmarried. He 
had his rooms in the house in Cambridge then owned by Mrs. 
Craigie, fronting on the road from Harvard College to Mt. 
Auburn Cemetery. It was a commodious structure, surrounded 
by ample grounds, looking out upon the winding river Charles, 
with Brighton hills and Brookline in the distance. Even 
then it was an ancient dwelling and like an old man gracing 
his age, with the honors of well-spent years, it numbered among 
its claims to consideration that it had been the home of 
Everett the orator, Sparks the historian, and Worcester the 
I lexicographer, and the additional fact that it was the head- 
f quarters of General Washington in the Eevolutionary War. 
', Thither Washington's wife had come to visit him, properly 
I: attended all the way from A^irginia, in a coach drawn by four 
[| horses, with a liveried postilion astride of each, according 
\\ to the elaborate ceremonial of the day. And there Martha 
'! Washington, with her inimitable grace, had enlivened the 
jj dreary winter of 1775-6, by dispensing touches of Virginia 



112 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

hospitality. Longfellow afterwards purchased the house and 
it continued to be his home for the remainder of his life, with 
his name and fame thus adding another attraction to the 
place. 

From this house Sumner wrote his brother George, still 
in Europe, in 1841 : " It is Sunday and I am Longfellow's 
guest. One of my pleasures is of a Saturday afternoon to 
escape from Boston and find shelter here. We dine late, say 
between five and six o'clock. Felton adds to the hilarity. 
We talk of what we have seen abroad, of cities visited, persons 
seen, and the trophies of art and of old time, while all the 
poets and masters, in all the languages, are at hand in 
Longfellow's well chosen library. I think you never knew 
my friend. When you return (if that event ever takes place) 
you will find great satisfaction and sympathy in his society." 

After Sumner's return from Europe, he became more 
intimate with Longfellow than he had been. Longfellow had 
travelled and studied in Europe and while he cared little for 
law and less for politics, and statistics about war and the 
conduct of prisons, subjects which were attracting Sumner's 
attention, both friends were enthusiastic over art and literature. 
They delighted to sit together and talk over some gallery of 
pictures or the works they had seen of some old master and 
together revive their recollections of them. Here a library of 
old books and there a road, a river or some mountain fastness, 
which each had seen, was recalled as an afterglow of European 
travel. Longfellow, with more settled purpose than Sumner, 
was then far advanced in his literary career. He had already 
published his "Hyperion" and "Voices of the Night" and 
some translations from Spanish poetry. But Sumner at this 
time, with little prospect of professional or political distinction, 
was only beginning to turn his thoughts towards literature. 
Books and magazines constantly furnished new topics of con- 
versation. 

Sumner's Saturday visits to the " Craigie House " were 
frequently extended over Sundays, their employments keeping 
them apart, during the other days of the week. His tall portly 
form, swinging easily up the walk, among the shrubbery, is 
still remembered. He always found a welcome, and his sister 
Julia recalled that he occasionally came home, bringing a new 
poem from Longfellow's pen, which he read to them with fine 
effect, for he read poetry well. 

In 1843 Longfellow married Fanny Appleton, the "Mary 
Ashburton " of liis " Hyperion ", a lady of great sweetness and 
ftlevation of character as well as beauty of person. She was 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 113 

the daughter of Nathan Appleton, twice a Member of Congress, 
from Boston. Her stepmother was a second cousin of Sumner, 
And thus the tie between Sumner and Longfellow was strength- 
ened by the event which so often separates bachelor friends. 
Sumner was present at their wedding. With her character- 
istic sweetness of disposition, the new wife sought to keep green 
her husband's bachelor friendship. Soon after the marriage 
Sumner wrote : " At Craigie Castle, the Longfellows dispense 
an easy and graceful hospitality, — always glad to enjoy the 
society of their friends at dinner or tea as it may happen." So 
" Craigie House " continued for Sumner a retreat where he 
went to find rest from the vexations of his long days of service. 
Another house that Sumner often visited during these years 
was the home of William H. Prescott, the historian. Sumner 
had never met Prescott before going to Europe, but while there 
the history of "Ferdinand and Isabella" appeared. It at- 
tracted attention in the circles where Sumner moved. He was 
enthusiastic in his admiration of it and took occasion fre- 
quently to recommend it to friends and interested himself in 
having it reviewed favorably in England. His letters to friends 
at home frequently referred to its success and some of these 
being shown to Prescott he had been led to acknowledge Sum- 
ner's kindness. An acquaintance followed Sumner's return to 
Boston, which afterwards ripened into a warm friendship. 

The Prescott family united three generations under one 
roof, Judge Prescott and his wife and their son William H. 
Prescott, and his wife and two children. Judge Prescott, the 
son of General Prescott of Battle of Bunker Hill fame, had been 
a member of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, when Sum- 
ner's father was Sheriff. He was an eminent lawyer and judge, 
as well as a citizen distinguished in private life for his learn- 
ing, his good sense and his uprightness. He was now verging 
upon eighty years of age, but still in the enjoyment of good 
health; and he continued, with almost unabated interest in 
events around him, till stricken with paralysis, shortly before 
his death, in 1844. 

William H. Prescott, Sumner's friend was a genial, warm- 
hearted man, scholarly in his tastes, full of kindness and con- 
sideration for the feelings of others, willing to do a favor or 
suffer an inconvenience, above little considerations of self and 
incapable of meanness. After graduating at Harvard he had 
entered upon the study of law, but, with an intervening trip to 
Europe, he abandoned it for the pursuit of literature which, 
notwithstanding an impaired vision, owing to the total loss of 
one eye and organic weakness in the other, he pursued with 



il4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

signal success. Reflecting upon his career, was influencing 
Sumner to think of a similar one for himself, 

Sumner was fond of the Prescotts and was in the habit of 
calling there on Sunday evenings, frequently, at such times, 
supping with the family. They were attached to him. His 
want of affectation, his love of knowledge and his good sense 
quickly found a response in such natures as the Prescotts', 
father and son. They invited him to their family parties, 
where he met Franklin Dexter, one of the leaders of the Boston 
bar, and his wife, a daughter of Judge Prescott. Sumner's 
presence on such occasions seemed to impose no restraint on 
the others. He joined heartily in the amusements of the hour, 
played " blind man's buff ", etc. 

Sumner was prompt to acknowledge this kindness of the Pres- 
cotts. When Lord Morpeth visited Boston in 184:1, William 
H. Prescott was one of the select number invited to meet him 
at Longfellow's rooms the evening of his arrival. This recep- 
tion was arranged for by Sumner and Longfellow together. 
When Sumner afterwards gave a dinner, in his honor, at the 
" Tremont House ", Prescott was again one of the guests. He 
liked Morpeth and after that assisted Sumner in entertaining 
him. And when he left Boston, Sumner and Prescott attended 
him to the railroad station to bid him good-bye. 

In the spring of 1842, Sumner and Prescott visited New 
York together. Prescott went to visit Washington Irving and 
invited Sumner to accompany him. He and Irving, each with- 
out the knowledge of the other, had been engaged the previous 
fall and winter, in writing upon the " Conquest of Mexico ". 
They had before trenched upon one another's ground, Irving 
in his " Life of Columbus " and Prescott in his " Ferdinand 
and Isabella ". Discovering that they were about to do so 
again, Irving generously gave up the theme to Prescott and 
furnished him what materials he had already gathered. Irving 
having been lately nominated and confirmed Minister from the 
United States to Spain, Prescott desired to see him before his 
departure on his mission, to interest him in procuring some 
materials for this history, from the Spanish archives. The 
visit was a delightful one. Sumner and Prescott both came 
back full of the praises of Irving and the reception he gave 
them. Each was disposed to rally the other upon his enthu- 
siasm, over their host, and the sayings and doings to which they 
had been parties. Sumner insisted that Prescott was fairly 
" Boz-ed " — a word that had lately been coined to express the 
enthusiasm created by Dickens on his recent tour in the United 
States. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 215 

Through Prescott, Sumner became acquainted with other 
authors, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks and George Ticknor. 
Bancroft had just issued the third volume of his history of 
the United States. He was Collector of the Port at Boston, 
at the time, and a Democrat. Boston, under the influence of 
such leaders as Webster, John Quincy Adams, Choate and 
Everett, was strongly Whig; and to be a Democrat there, meant 
to be, in a measure, ostracized. Even George Bancroft did not 
altogether escape this ban, though, from his literary eminence, 
he might reasonably have hoped to do so. But Sumner was 
not much in politics then and did not let such considerations 
influence his friendships. Bancroft frequently dropped into 
Hillard and Sumner's office to chat and there he always found 
a welcome and congenial company, Hillard, his partner, and 
William W. Story, their student, were hardly behind Sumner, 
in their love for good books. 

Their office was an attractive place. Story reveals how their 
thoughts, "when business would allow, sometimes when it 
would not allow," would steal away from the law to revel in talk 
of poetry and fiction and history and how they delighted in 
anecdotes about some old judge, or the bar, some great argu- 
ment or celebrated trial, — the literature of the law rather than 
the law itself. They enjoyed the rich conversation of Choate 
and Dexter and Judge Story, and of old Jeremiah Mason, 
Webster's great rival at the bar, blunt, hard-headed, full of 
rich experiences of former days on the New Hampshire cir- 
cuits. Those were delightful days to which their thoughts af- 
terwards often reverted. They all had a taste for literature. 
Two of them afterwards abandoned the law. Story for liter- 
ature and sculpture, and Sumner for public life. Story, in 
1847, published his " Treatise on the Law of Sales " which he 
dedicated to Sumner, 

The first sentence of quaint introduction, read, like a vale- 
dictory to the law. " Sir Edward Coke, in the preface to the 
eighth part of his Eeports says : ' As naturalists say that there 
is no kind of fowl of the wood, or of the plain, that doth not 
bring somewhat to the building of the Eagle's nest — some cin- 
namon, or things of price, some juniper or thing of lesser value; 
so ought every man, according to his power, place and capacity, 
to bring something to the adorning of our great Eagle's nest, 
our own dear country ; ' and these presents I have brought to 
that great Eagle's nest, the law." 

A year after the publication of this book. Story went to Italy 
to live and that continued to be his home. He published the 
" Life and Letters " of his father, Judge Story, and two vol- 



j-j^g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

umes of poems, besides some minor works. But he is best 
known as a sculptor. His statues of his father and Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall and some of his imaginative pieces take a high 
rank. He died in Italy in 1895 surviving Sumner more than 
twenty-one years. 

Another American artist whose friendship Sumner enjoyed, 
during this period was Washington Allston. He lived in Cam- 
bridge and was a graduate of Harvard, but had studied art in 
Italy and France. While in Europe he had become acquainted 
with Wordsworth and Coleridge and, when Sumner went to 
England, he commended him to these friends. After Sumner's 
return, he was frequently at Allston's house and was much in- 
terested in his work as an artist. In all his efforts to aid Craw- 
ford and in raising the subscription for the purchase of the 
" Orpheus ", Sumner constantly consulted Allston, who heartily 
seconded his plans. He counted on his aid in mounting it and 
in arranging the exhibition of Crawford's works, but, before the 
" Orpheus " arrived, Allston was dead. Sumner commemorated 
him in his oration delivered before the " Phi Beta Society " of 
Harvard in 1846, on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist and 
the Philanthropist ", one of the most finished productions of 
his life. 

Sumner had an acquaintance with Daniel Webster and John 
Quincy Adams. They were Boston men and he therefore had 
abundant opportunity to see them in private and hear them in 
public and to be familiar with their careers, which during the 
closing years of Webster's life, especially after his speech on 
the Seventh of March, 1850, were the subject of much discus- 
sion and comparison. Sumner's frequent allusions to them in 
his letters show that he was observing these great men carefully. 
He always admired the great intellect and the grand presence 
and magnificent oratory of Webster, never equalled in modern 
times. But he thought Webster tacked too much on the ques- 
tion of slavery and lacked moral strength. He did not like 
Adams' apparent disregard of parliamentary forms in Congress, 
but he delighted in the moral courage of the man, as he stood, 
year after year, on the floor of the House, defying slavery and 
"defending the right of the people to petition their Eepresenta- 
tives. His opponents sought to deny the right of petition, by 
preventing those against slavery being either read or discussed 
in Congress. Sumner's letters, even thus early, show that much 
as he admired Webster, he admired Adams more. Later in life 
he came to know both of these men better. He saw them, con- 
versed with them and letters were exchanged, upon such sub- 
jects as are likely to bring a constituent in contact with his 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 117 

Eepresentatives, but his relation to them could never be called 
intimate. 

The man who more than any other, at this time, influenced 
Sumner's views upon public questions was William E. Chan- 
ning, the Philanthropist commemorated in Sumner's Phi Beta 
Kappa oration. He was by profession a minister, but is much 
better known as a writer upon moral questions. After grad- 
uating from Harvard, in the class with Judge Story, he had 
spent some time as a tutor in a private family in Virginia. 
Here and on a visit later to the West India Islands he had an 
opportunity to observe slavery in practice and he became un- 
alterably opposed to it. He was outspoken in his opposition, 
condemned it in public addresses and wrote a book, the most 
extensive published work of his life, setting out his objections 
to it. He had also studied the question of peace and war and 
took the same position upon this subject that Sumner after- 
wards did in his oration on " The True Grandeur of Nations ". 
The high ethical ground that Channing assumed and the elo- 
quence and fearlessness with which he sustained his views made 
a lasting impression. He died, in 1842, cut off in the full tide 
of usefulness, at sixty-two years of age. His last public appear- 
ance was to make an address to the citizens of Lenox, Massa- 
chusetts, on the occasion of celebrating the anniversary of 
British emancipation in the West Indies. 

Sumner had known Channing for years. Notwithstanding 
the disparity in their ages they had been intimate friends and 
had many points of likeness. They were both well educated, 
graduates of the same college and both had a strong taste for 
literary pursuits. They both cared little for wealth, but had a 
generous ambition to be useful men. Each felt a deep interest 
in their common country, a pride in her hard beginning and 
her growing power and yet neither could be said then to belong 
to any political party. Doubtless they both voted the Whig 
ticket, but with no enthusiasm and without any effort to give 
direction to the votes of others, Channing had a fascination 
for young men. He appealed to conscience, pointed out a great 
future for them and an ideal life, motives for action generally 
stronger in young men than in those of advanced years. 

When he died, Sumner characterized him as " one of the 
purest, brightest, greatest minds of his age". And he added: 
" He has been my friend and I may almost say idol, for nearly 
ten years. For this period I have enjoyed his confidence in 
no common way. Both his last treatises he read to me in manu- 
script and asked my advice with regard to their publication, 
and mv criticism." 



il8 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Speaking of his eloquence four years later, Sumner said: 
" With few of the physical attributes belonging to the orator, 
he was an orator of surpassing grace. His soul tabernacled in 
a body that was little more than a filament of clay. He was 
small in stature; but when he spoke, his person seemed to dilate 
with the majesty of his thoughts. * * * His voice was soft and 
musical, not loud or full in tone; and yet, like conscience, it 
made itself heard in the inmost chambers of the soul. His 
eloquence was gentleness and persuasion, reasoning for relig- 
ion, humanity and justice. * * * His eloquence had not the 
character and fashion of forensic effort or parliamentary debate. 
It mounted above these, into an atmosphere unattempted by 
the applauded orators of the world. Whenever he spoke or 
wrote, it was with the loftiest purpose, as his works attest, — 
not for public display, not to advance himself, not on any ques- 
tion of pecuniary interest, not under any worldly temptation, 
but to promote the love of God and man. Here are untried 
founts of truest inspiration. Eloquence has been called action; 
but it is something more. It is that divine and ceaseless energy, 
which saves and helps mankind. It cannot assume its highest 
form in personal pursuit of dishonest guardians or selfish con- 
tentions for a crown, not in defence of a murderer, or invective 
hurled at a conspirator. I would not overstep the proper mod- 
esty of this discussion, nor would I disparage the genius of the 
great masters ; but all must join in admitting that no rhetorical 
skill or oratorical power can elevate these lower, earthly things 
to the natural heights on which Channing stood, when he 
pleaded for Freedom and Peace." 

These passages are valuable as revealing the direction of Sum- 
ner's thoughts and studies at this time. They show his near- 
ness to Channing and his familiarity with the great orators of 
other days, Demosthenes, Webster and Burke, and that he was 
reflecting upon their speeches and the true springs of eloquence. 
It will be seen hereafter how much the eloquence of Adams and 
Channing became models for Sumner. In his best efforts in 
public life, as his " Freedom, National ; Slavery, Sectional ", or 
the " Crime against Kansas ", the fearless pugnacity of Adams 
unites with the high ethical tone of Channing and both upon 
the Senate and the country they made an impression that has 
rarely been equalled. Sumner united some of the distinguish- 
ing traits of both these men. He was as scholarly in his tastes 
and as carefully educated as either of them. He was hardly 
less industrious, though a man of less method, than Adams. He 
knew no fear ; when he had resolved that a course was right, he 
dared to pursue it. Even John Quincy Adams never stood be- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 119 

fore the slave power and dealt such blows as Sumner in his 
speech on the " Crime against Kansas " and Channing never 
lashed the dogs of War as Sumner did in his " True Grandeur 
of Nations " delivered before the city authorities and people of 
Boston. Still it was the work of both these men that fell, in 
large measure, to Sumner, after they were gone. He took it up 
and never faltered. 

Sumner saw the work of Adams in Congress, after he left the 
White House, without a parallel, in American history. Adams 
then had all the benefit of his great learning and experience, 
and the prestige, his reputation for both gave him, and yet, 
having filled the highest places, he came to this later work, un- 
warped by any ambition for promotion. He unselfishly de- 
voted what was left of his life, eighteen years of unremitted 
effort, to the cause of universal freedom and his country's ad- 
vancement. This was a unique object lesson. Channing upon 
another stage, but with scarcely less singleness of purpose, de- 
voted himself to the same causes. He was more an idealist than 
Adams. His training had made him so; and he was so by con- 
stitution. They both supported one another. Adams, from 
his place in the House of Representatives, fought their common 
fight before the nation. But could he have maintained his 
place in Congress to make this fight, during the long years he 
did, if some one as eloquent as Channing had not advocated 
that cause in Boston? Sumner was in a position where he 
could see and appreciate the work of both. He was nearer to 
Channing and more intimate with him, felt his work more, but 
he admired the larger influence of Adams from his higher place. 
When Channing's manuscripts were submitted to Sumner, 
he was glad to aid him with criticisms or suggestions. Sum- 
ner was always interested in the literary projects of his friends. 
No kindlier encouragement came to Hillard upon his literary 
efforts than Sumner extended. He delivered the Phi Beta 
Kappa oration at Harvard on August 24, 1843, and the week 
before we find Sumner writing his friend George W. Greene, 
j at home from his consulate at Rome, urging him to be present 
j and promising him something " refined and brilliant in the 
j audience and the' orator ". After it was delivered and printed, 
; we find him writing to Howe, then absent, that they were " all 
surrounded by Hillard's glory ". " His oration has been pub- 
I lished ; and the press and all who read it express the warmest 
admiration," etc. A new poem from Longfellow's pen he 
heralded to his friends as an occasion to be anticipated. Long- 
I fellow, Lieber, Prescott and Bancroft were then in the full tide 
i of authorship. Sumner saw most that all of them wrote during 



120 L^PE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

these years, before it reached the public. He was disposed like 
his father to say agreeable things to others. He was the last of 
men to wound any one's feelings by criticism needlessly severe. 
This trait, with his generosity of time in assisting his friends 
in any way they asked and his good judgment in literary mat- 
ters led them to consult him freely in their work. He took the 
kindest interest, criticised proofs, wrote reviews and gave them 
references from his own readings and sometimes made searches 
in the libraries for matter for them. To Lieber, especially, who 
was teaching in the South, where he did not have access to 
large collections of books, it was an advantage he appreciated 
to have such a friend as Sumner in Boston. 

For the company of his friends, in a social way, Sumner's 
fondness continued. He enjoyed good living with moderation, 
and frequently with Howe or some other dropped into a cafe, 
in the evening after the day's work was done and took some re- 
freshment, ices, strawberries or oysters in season and occasion- 
ally a glass of hock or claret, thus mingling good fare and good 
talk with the news of the day. It was still the society of gentle- 
men. Strong drinks he did not use. Saloons he did not visit. 
For any exliibition of drunkenness or an approach to it in con- 
dition he always had the utmost disgust. In his case it was the 
survival of the European or English habit as he had grown 
familiar with it abroad, in the best circles, of using a light 
stimulant of wine in the same way as tea and coffee, or a cup 
of cocoa. It was still the England of Johnson and Goldsmith 
and Garrick, with the coffee-house and light table-talk, surviv- 
ing, that he enjoyed. 

Upon his return from Europe, he had taken the place in the 
Society of the Cincinnati, formerly filled by his grandfather 
and now made vacant by the death of his father. The Society 
was originally founded in 1783 by the officers of the American 
army of the Revolutionary War for patriotic and benevolent 
purposes. Major Job Sumner, the grandfather, was the orig- 
inal member, then the father and now by his death Charles, 
being the oldest son, was entitled to the succession. He at- 
tended its annual banquet. The rank appealed to his pride in 
a career of honorable service. But with the Brook Farm com- 
munity, headed by George Ripley, he does not seem to have felt 
much sympathy. His younger brother Horace was at one time 
a member of this band of social reformers. ■ Charles rather 
humorously wrote : " Horace has commenced as a farmer. He 
is with Mr. Ripley eight miles from Boston. He picks to- 
matoes, cucumbers, beans, upsets a barrel of potatoes, cleans 
away chips, studies agriculture, rakes hay in a meadow and is 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 131 

pleased with his instructors and associates." Yet it was a nat- 
ural craving for companionship in the case of both brothers 
that led them into these organizations. 

Sumner was beginning to feel his lonely position. His 
friends Cleveland, Hillard, Longfellow, Howe, Prescott, those 
with whom he was most intimate were now all married and 
gathered about firesides of their own. Sumner frequently- 
dropped in among them and shared their homes and seemed to 
rejoice in their hajjpiness. And yet we know it was not without 
a vein of sadness. Of one of his friends he wrote : " I think 
he will be married very soon. What then will become of me? 
It is a dreary world to travel in alone." To Crawford: "Long- 
fellow is most happily married, I am most unhappily single." 
To Lieber ; "^ Longfellow is to be happy for a fortnight in the 
shades of Cambridge; then to visit his wife's friends in Berk- 
shire ; then his own in Portland. I am all alone, — alone. My 
friends fall away from me." To Lieber again, three months 
later, Oct. 6, 1843; "I am more and more desolate and alone. 
I wish you and your dear wife lived here. You would allow 
me to enter your house and be at home; to recline on the sofa, 
and play the part of a friend in the house, I lead a joyless 
life, with very little sympathy." We might quote farther, ex- 
pressions of the same kind, but these are sufficient. That same 
month William W. Story was married. The question is natur- 
ally asked ; why did not Sumner marry at this time in his life ? 
He was a refined, companionable man, of pure life and good 
habits, fond of the pleasures of taste and society and was well 
qualified to do his part towards making a happy home. How- 
ever it may have been at other periods, at this he enjoyed the 
society of young ladies. It would have been natural for him 
to join his fortunes to those of some of the accomplished young 
women he met. 

His circumstances undoubtedly had much to do with pre- 
venting it. The general practice of the law, without a fixed sal- 
ary from some company or other employer, furnishes to a young 
practitioner, at best, a precarious income. Though the end of 
the year shows fees earned, he could not generally have fore- 
told, at its beginning, where they were to come from, — a con- 
dition not very encouraging to a young man contemplating 
matrimony. Sumner's trip to Europe had interrupted his pro- 
fessional career, consumed all his savings and left him about 
five thousand dollars in debt. This debt continued unpaid for 
several years. This shows that he was not making money rap- 
idly. His father's will, by leaving all the property to his mother 
for life left him with no improvement of his fortunes from that 



122 ^IPE <^P CHARLES SUMNER 

source. He felt poor and with his pride and sensitiveness, 
shrank from asking another to share such a home as he could 
furnish. 

His ambition too, had its influence. He purposed to achieve 
an honorable position and leave something behind him that 
would be worthy of remembrance. And to accomplish this he 
was willing to sacrifice much of his own personal comfort and 
happiness. It is certain that while his mother lived he did not 
feel the want of a home as he might have done. He was de- 
voted to her and she to him. His father was dead, his brothers 
were gone and he was left to take their places, with his sisters, 
in the family circle. But this was not to last always. When 
later Mary and his mother were dead, and Julia was married 
and gone, and he was left alone, to encounter sickness and 
broken political friendships and the hard lines of public life, 
then, but not till then, was the cup of his loneliness to be full. 
This of course he could not then foresee, but he did feel that 
the mother and sisters, in their lonely position, had claims upon 
him which he could not disregard, either by bringing another 
into the home or by severing himself from it. 



CHAPTER XII 

INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS — "tHE CAROLINE^' — "tHE CREOLe" 
— SLAVERY AGAIN — THE " SOMERS " MUTINY — SERVICES 

FOR EDUCATION AT THE LAW SCHOOL — EDITS VESEY JR. — 

SICKNESS — HIS SISTER MARY's DEATH — AT WORK AGAIN 

There were ^ave questions of international law arising be- 
tween the United States and England during the years 1841-3, 
in which Sumner took an interest. During the years 1835-7, 
preceding his trip to Europe, he had given instruction in the 
Law School on the Law of Nations. The first volume of 
" Kent's Commentaries " was used as a textbook but with his 
customary fulness of preparation he had studied the subject 
widely in other authors. The knowledge of the subject thus 
acquired made international questions of peculiar interest to 
him afterwards. 

A quick succession of perplexing questions had made war 
imminent between the United States and England. In 1837 
there had arisen a rebellion in Canada, It was suppressed, but 
the rebels sought refuge in New York, just across the Niagara 
river. There they found support and encouragement and made 
accessions to their numbers. They procured a vessel called the 
" Caroline ", in which they made incursions and carried sup- 
plies from Navy Island, in the Niagara river, to their friends 
in Canada. Some Canadians finally determined to destroy this 
vessel and for this purpose crossed over to Navy Island, which 
was British territory, where they expected to find the vessel 
at her accustomed anchorage. But on reaching Navy Island, 
they found she was not there but was moored to the American 
shore and outside the British boundaries. They, however, per- 
severed in their jrarpose of destruction and boarding her there 
cut her loose from the shore, fired her and turned her adrift, 
when she floated over the falls and was lost. In the melee, one 
man, named Durfree was killed, by the assailants. 

In 1840, Alexander McLeod came from Canada to New York 
and in a blatant moment, boasted that he had been in the in- 
cursion that destroyed the " Caroline " and that he was the 
slayer of Durfree. He was at once arrested and was afterwards 
indicted for murder. Pending his trial, the British govern- 
ment interfered and demanded his release and assumed the 
123 



;^24 I-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

responsibility for the invasion, Justifying it as necessary for the 
protection of her territory. She insisted that McLeod could 
not be held to answer for an act committed under the authority 
of his country any more than a soldier could be tried for mur- 
der when the deed was committed in battle against her public 
enemy. 

A flare of excitement, with talk of war followed. Sumner 
promptly took the side of Great Britain and declared that his 
country was wrong. He so wrote his friends, giving his reasons. 
Mr. Webster, who was then Secretary of State, insisted that Mc- 
Leod could only be discharged by the courts and directed the 
Attorney-General of the United States to appear before the 
courts of New York and make this defence for McLeod and 
demand his release. But the Supreme Court of the State of 
New York when McLeod was brought before it upon a writ of 
habeas corpus, declined to release him. The feverish state of 
the public mind towards England, growing out of disputes about 
slavery and the North-Eastern boundary, the suspense attending 
the protracted proceedings in McLeod's case, the determined 
position of New York and the threatening attitude of England, 
gave for a time, an alarming aspect to the situation. It after- 
wards became ludicrous, when, upon McLeod's trial, an aJihi 
was proven for him and he was acquitted. 

The case of the " Creole " followed close upon the exciting 
stage of McLeod's trouble. The " Creole " was a vessel that 
sailed, in 1841, from Virginia to New Orleans, with a cargo of 
slaves. On the way, the slaves rose in insurrection, killed their 
master, threw the crew of the vessel into irons and put into the 
English port of Nassau, in the West India Islands. There the 
slaves were freed and the vessel was allowed to continue its 
course deprived of its cargo. The occurrence recalled other oc- 
casions when slaves belonging to people of the South had been 
liberated under similar circumstances. The Southern mind 
was at once aroused in defence of their " peculiar institution ". 
During the discussion of the case in Congress, Joshua R. 
Giddings of Ohio, introduced a series of resolutions, since 
known from the name of their author as the " Giddings 
Eesolutions ", which sought to define the limits of slavery in 
the United States. They declared that slavery could have 
no existence outside of the States that permitted it, that an 
owner by taking his slaves into other free States or Territories 
or upon the high seas, by that act gave them their freedom and 
that therefore the slaves upon the " Creole " were only freeing 
themselves from an unlawful detention. The reading of the res- 
olutions aroused a storm of indignation in the House, then 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 125 

strongly pro-slavery in its sympathies. A resolution was at 
once introduced and passed, condemning the conduct of Gid- 
dings as unwarranted and unwarrantable and as deserving the 
severest condemnation of the people of the country and of Con- 
gress in particular. Giddings at once resigned his seat, but was 
immediately re-elected by an overwhelming majority, with in- 
structions from his district to present his resolutions again and 
press them to a vote. 

The House did not allow the resolutions to be introduced 
again, but Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State, presented the 
" Creole " matter to Lord Ashburton, who was then in the 
United States as Special Plenipotentiary from Great Britain, to 
negotiate a treaty defining the north-eastern boundary of the 
United States. Mr. Webster insisted upon the return of the 
slaves that had escaped from the " Creole " and a treaty regula- 
tion which would prevent a recurrence of such troubles. The 
difficulty was finally adjusted by a reference of the matter under 
the provisions of the Treaty of Washington for the return of 
fugitives from justice. 

Webster's dispatches upon this question surprised and startled 
many people in Xew England and among this number was 
Sumner. Dr. Channing was still living and he thought the 
doctrines of these dispatches committed the whole Union to the 
defence of slavery, at home and abroad, and were so pernicious 
that they should at once be combated. He wrote a pamphlet 
upon the subject, " The Duty of the Free States." Before its 
publication, he submitted it to Sumner and Hillard and his son, 
William F. Channing, for their criticism. Sumner took a deep 
interest in it and made numerous suggestions, furnished him 
materials, and he and Hillard read the proofs as it was passing 
through the press. Sumner maintained that the slaves on the 
" Creole " had a right to their freedom and that the English 
government was bound, by its own laws, to recognize this. He 
approved the doctrines of the " Giddings Resolutions " and 
maintained that Giddings w^as entitled to his opinions whether 
right or wrong, and, as a Representative, to express them in 
Congress and that he should not have been censured. 

To Lord Morpeth, he wrote: "You will see how rapidly this 
question of slavery moves in the country. The South seems to 
have the madness which precedes great reverses. I agree with 
Mr. Giddings in his resolutions. Indeed they are the exact 
reverse of Mr. Calhoun's famous resolutions, adopted by the 
senate three years ago ; and from Mr. Calhoun's I most 
thoroughly dissent. Thank God ! the Constitution of the 
United States does not recognize man as properiy. It speaks of 



12Q LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

slaves as persons. Slavery is a local institution, drawing its 
vitality from State laws ; therefore when the slave-owner volun- 
tarily ' takes his slave beyond the sphere of the State laws, 
he manumits him. This was the case with the owner of the 
" Creole " ; and Mr. Giddings, in asserting the freedom of 
those slaves under the Constitution of the United States, laid 
down a constitutional truth. But suppose it were not true in 
point of constitutional law, still Mr. Giddings had a perfect 
right to assert it; and the slaveholders in voting to censure 
him, have sowed the wind. I fear the reaping of the whirl- 
wind." 

Mr, Jacob Harvey, a gentleman of Irish birth, living in New 
York city, had made the acquaintance of Sumner, while on a 
visit to his brother Albert, who was then residing there. Know- 
ing Sumner's familiarity with the law of nations he wrote him 
for his opinion of the "Creole " affair. Sumner answered him 
at some length. In this letter Sumner took the position that 
England could not deliver up the slaves who were not impli- 
cated in the mutiny and murder by which the government of the 
ship was overthrown because she had laid down a rule not to 
recognize property in human beings after the date of her Eman- 
cipation Act. He argued that she could not lend her machinery 
of justice to execute laws she had already pronounced un- 
christian and immoral any more than she wouldto enforce a 
contract of prostitution or concubinage. He admitted the case 
of the slaves who had participated in the mutiny and murder 
was not so clear, but that, nevertheless, the New England courts 
had decided that a slave, who came to their soil, by the consent 
of his master, thereby became entitled to his freedom and so 
when taken upon the high sea, beyond the boundaries of the 
States where slavery was legalized, he was remitted to his nat- 
ural right to freedom and was justified in using whatever force 
was necessary to overcome the power which deprived him of it. 
But if they were guilty as claimed, he argued, then their crime 
was piracy and so it became the duty of England to retain and 
try them under her own law forbidding piracy and not send 
them to the United States, to be tried under our law. 

From these letters it will be seen how decidedly Sumner had 
taken his stand in opposition to slavery. He was long before 
this a subscriber and reader of The Liberator, the anti-slavery 
paper published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. It was 
the first paper he ever siibscribed for ; but he did not agree with 
many of its teachings. It was too radical in its theories and 
too violent in its utterances to meet his unqualified approval. 
He believed that slavery was wrong, a great national disgrace 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 137 

and that it should be abolished. He was deeply in earnest upon 
this subject. His heart was full of it. Upon hardly any other 
subject do his letters so abound in references as this. 

But Garrison thou^^ht that a republic that permitted slavery 
constituted a lea^^e with hell; that it leagued every person 
who countenanced it or took any part in its affairs with the 
slaveholder and made all accountable for his wrongs. Hence 
Garrison taught that all who opposed slavery must refuse to vote 
or hold office or have anything whatever to do actively with the 
conduct of the government, that the most they could do was to 
passively submit to its laws. He inculcated this doctrine with 
burning earnestness and sometimes in violent language. 

Sumner, on the contrary, believed that it was the duty of 
all good citizens, by their votes as well as their voices, to unite 
in correcting the wrong and in placing men in office who were 
thoroughly in sympathy with their cause and that it was the 
duty of anti-slavery men to accept office, to promote their com- 
mon purpose. Though entertaining these widely different 
views, Sumner did not quarrel with Garrison and his followers, 
nor they with him. Each retained the respect and confidence of 
the other. It was only a difference of methods ; their cause was 
the same. But, in the light of subsequent events, it will hardly 
be disputed now that Sumner's method was more practical 
than Garrison's. 

Sumner already viewed with apprehension the growing 
sentiment in the South for more territory, out of which to carve 
slave states. In 1843, he wrote Dr. Howe, then travelling in 
Europe : " We fear some insidious movements in favor of 
Texas. The South yearns for that immense cantle of territory 
to carve into great slaveholding States. We shall witness in 
this Congress an animated contest on this matter. * * * j 
wish that our people and Government would concern them- 
selves with what we have now. Let us fill that with knowledge 
and virtue and love of one's neighbor; and let England and 
Russia take the rest, — I do not care who. There has been a 
recent debate in Congress, in which Mr. Charles Ingersoll said 
he would go to war rather than allow England to occupy 
Cuba. I say : ^ Take Cuba, Victoria, if you will ; banish thence 
slavery; lay the foundation of Saxon freedom; build presses 
and school-houses ! ' Wliat harm can then ensue to us ? Mr. 
Ingersoll proceeds on the plan of preparing for war. He 
adopts the moral of the old fable of ^'Esop, — which, you know, 
I have always thought so pernicious, — where the wild boar was 
whetting his tusks, though no danger was near, that he might 
be prepared for danger. I wish our country would cease to 



128 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

whet its tusks. The appropriations of the navy last year were 
nine million dollars. Imagine half — nay, a tithe — of this sum 
given annually to objects of humanity, education and litera- 
ture ! I know of nothing in our Government that troubles me 
more than this thought. And who can talk so lightly of war? 
One year of war would break open and let loose all the im- 
prisoned winds, now happily imprisoned by that great Aeolus — 
Peace — and let them range over the world." 

Thus he placed universal emancipation and universal peace 
before him as the great objects to be sought for in our ever- 
widening civilization. Both causes, it will hereafter be seen, 
were to be strangely influential in moulding his own fortunes. 
But such a thought had probably never thus far occurred to 
him. His interest in them seemed to come only from his 
thoughtful reading and observation and his convictions upon 
these subjects, — so deep that he could not repress an expression 
of them, when he saw how generally tliey were ignored. Thus 
far his earnestness and the intensity of his convictions were 
known only to his intimate friends. To them he spoke and 
wrote freely his opinions and to them they were well known. 
But to the public who knew him, if it knew him at all, only as 
a struggling young attorney, of scholarly tastes and attain- 
ments, giving of his time largely to writing for a law magazine 
and hearing recitations in the Law School, what mattered it 
what his opinions were upon subjects occupying so little of the 
commercial mind as war and slavery? It was reserved for the 
future to develop the importance of these subjects, both to him 
and them. 

It is apparent how much Sumner was occupied at this time 
with subjects outside of his profession and yet involving ques- 
tions of international law. Another subject of this kind, that 
he took much interest in, attracted public attention at the time, 
though it is now almost forgotten. It was known as the 
Somers Mutiny. The U. S. brig of war Somers had sailed 
for the coast of Africa, under the command of Alexander 
Slidell Mackenzie. The " Mackenzie " was added to his name 
by an act of the Legislature of Xew York. He was a brother of 
John Slidell who with Mason, was a Confederate Commissioner 
to England and other European countries during the American 
Civil War, The crew of the Somers was partly composed of 
cadets from the IT. S. ISTaval Academy at Annapolis, Md., 
among whom was Philip Spencer, a son of John C. Spencer, 
then Secretary of War in President Tyler's Cabinet. During 
the voyage, a mutiny arose among the crew, headed by young 
Spencer and two others. Small and Cromwell. Their purpose 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 129 

was to kill the officers, take possession of the ship and turn 
pirates. The mutiny was discovered and the leaders of it were 
arrested and thrown into irons, but it threatening to break out 
again, Mackenzie called a council of his officers and they recom- 
mended that the safety of the vessel required that the leaders 
be hung. Spencer, Small and Cromwell were accordingly hung 
at the yard-arm. 

Upon the return of the vessel to the United States, the 
matter was the subject of an investigation by a court martial. 
The position and influence of Spencer's father made the situa- 
tion a dangerous one for Mackenzie. Sumner was appealed to 
by the friends of ]\rackenzie to write and publish a defence of 
the action of the officers, to aid in keeping public sentiment 
right in Boston. This he did in a strong article in the North 
American Review, taking the position that the executions were 
justifiable on the ground of self-defence, that it was not a 
question alone, what the actual danger was, but whether the 
officers, in the reasonable and proper use of their faculties, had 
just ground, from the circumstances, for believing, that their 
own lives and the safety of the ship required this action. His 
position was approved by Judge Story and by Judge Prescott, 
the father of the historian. 

Mackenzie was acquitted by the court martial. He never 
ceased to remember with gratitude the kindness of Sumner. 
He was a man of culture and the author of some books of merit. 
He promptly wrote Sumner a letter acknowledging his obliga- 
tion and later visited Boston and again thanked him. They 
were entertained together by Longfellow. Sumner was later 
entertained by him and his wife at their home, in Tarrytown, 
on the Hudson Eiver. When he died, a few years later, there 
was among his papers a sealed note, to be opened by his wife, 
after he died, in which he requested some one to communicate 
to Sumner, in his name, his thanks for his friendship and to 
add an expression of his high appreciation of it. At the in- 
stance of Mrs. Mackenzie, this message was communicated to 
Sumner by Commodore Perry. 

This incident in Sumner's life has a sequel to it. In 1851, 
Sumner was at Saratoga. He had recently been elected to the 
U. S. Senate. He and John Slidell, then a Senator from 
Louisiana, were invited by a mutual friend to dine together; 
but Slidell at once excused himself and declined the invitation. 
Li defending his breach of courtesy afterwards, he admitted the 
obligation he was under to Sumner for the chivalrous defence 
of his dead brother, but justified himself, on the ground 
that Sumner, in a public speech, had invoked upon Massachu- 



130 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

setts a spirit of such inhospitality to slaveholders, as would 
prevent any of them from ever setting foot within the state. 
Slidell declared he would never break bread with a man who 
entertained such sentiments. 

With Sumner's growing interest in slavery and war it was 
natural that he should take an added interest in the Presiden- 
tial election of 1844. The Democrats had nominated Polk and 
the Whigs, Clay. The former were threatening war with Mex- 
ico and the annexation of Texas ; the latter were opposing both. 
Sumner watched the struggle with interest but took no public 
part in it. He voted for Clay and hoped he would be elected 
and was much disappointed at his defeat. But it was the in- 
terest of a scholar or philanthropist that Sumner felt; not that 
of a partisan. Party ties were never very strong with him and, 
thus far, he could hardly be said to have any. 

In December, 1844, he was the Whig candidate in his ward 
for member of the School Committee. The ward was entitled 
to two members and his party was in the majority ; though his 
colleague was elected, he was defeated. He had become much 
interested in the cause of education and this induced him to 
allow the use of his name. He does not, however, seem to have 
felt much interest in the contest. He and his friend Howe were 
in active co-operation with their friend Horace Mann in his 
efforts to promote the cause of popular education in Boston, and 
if elected Sumner would probably have lent his influence to 
theirs to conform the city schools more to European models. 

One service he undertook for the cause of education, at this 
time, that afterwards seriously embarrassed him. He was 
chairman of a committee appointed to secure an appropriation 
from the legislature of Massachusetts to rebuild the state 
normal schools at Westfield and Bridgewater. He discharged 
this duty with his accustomed ardor and fidelity, distasteful 
as the task was to him of approaching the members of the legis- 
lature for this purpose. He met from them a cool reception 
and only after considerable effort and many discouragements 
was his committee able to secure a grudging appropriation of 
five thousand dollars and this coupled with the condition that 
the memorialists raise an equal amount. The towns contrib- 
uted one thousand dollars each ; and the other three thousand 
dollars the committee undertook to raise by private sub- 
scriptions. 

To hasten the buildings, Sumner injudiciously agreed to 
raise five thousand dollars upon his own personal note, taking 
the contributions of the towns when collected in part payment. 
Thus money, that might have been easily raised with the ex- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 131 

citement of securing new buildings, was left to be raised after 
the buildings were completed and the enthusiasm gone. 
Sumner found himself a 3'ear afterwards, when the note came 
due, without funds to meet it and three years later it was still 
unpaid. He had cause of complaint against some members of 
the committee who did not properly support him. The private 
subscriptions, to anticipate which the note was partly given, 
were slow in being paid and some were not paid at all. It 
would have been better to allow the schools to continue in the 
buildings they had, though unsuitable, until the money was 
actually in hand. But with the aid of Mr. Waterston, another 
member of the committee, who was always with Sumner faith- 
ful to the enterprise, the whole difficulty was at last adjusted. 

He performed another service for the public in 1845. The 
Boston Athenaeum was to be removed to its site on Beacon 
Street and he was appointed upon a committee to determine the 
plan of the new building. He was much interested in the 
work of the committee. He wrote to Crawford and his brother 
George, telling them his objections to numerous plans sub- 
mitted, giving them his ideas of what the building should be 
and asking them for suggestions. He wished especially to 
secure a large, hospitable, vestibule hall and stairway and 
having admired the stairs leading to the Vatican on the right 
of St. Peter's at Eome as " of such exquisite proportions that 
you seemed to be borne aloft on wings," he had George send 
him their width, height and breadth. His interest in archi- 
tecture while in Europe and his acquaintances there were other- 
wise useful to him in his work upon the committee. 

In 184-i Sumner was elected a corresponding member of the 
New York Historical Society and to a membership in the 
American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass. The 
former honor he owed to his friend John Jay of New York, 
liillard, about the same time, was made a member of the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society. The result of George Sumner's 
investigations, in Europe, into the history of the Puritans while 
in Leyden, which he had embodied in a monograph of thirty- 
two pages, appeared in the collections of the last named society 
published, in 1845. It is a valuable contribution to the early 
history of the Puritan fathers, — Charles pronounced it the 
most interesting they had ever published. It is repeatedly 
referred to, with commendation, by Palfrey in his History of 
New England. George was a discriminating, scholarly man, 
fairly described by Charles as, " sagacious, learned, humane, 
interested in all the institutions, which are the fruit and token 
of civilization in the true sense of that word." 



132 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Judge Story had suffered a protracted illness, in the early 
part of the year 1843. During his sickness, Sumner took his 
place in the Law School and performed half the work there, 
in lecturing and hearing recitations. He tried to keep up the 
work of his law office, at the same time, but in doing so found 
himself a very busy man, the lectures requiring, for their prep- 
aration, a great deal of attention. He continued his residence 
in Boston, and the daily trips to Cambridge made an addi- 
tional draft. He was thus occupied for eight months. During 
this period he withdrew entirely from society, declining all 
invitations, except the hospitalities of one or two intimate 
friends. 

But on the tenth of April, 1844, he commenced another task 
that taxed him still more severely. He undertook for two 
thousand dollars to edit and annotate the Chancery Reports of 
Francis Vesey, Jr., in twenty volumes furnishing the manu- 
script at the rate of a volume each fortnight, — as fast as fifty- 
seven printers could print it. In the notes, he was to bring the 
learning upon the questions decided down to date with a full 
reference to all the English and American authorities. It was 
a herculean task and well-nigh proved fatal to him. As it 
progressed he realized the hopeless drudgery of his undertaking 
and plead for more time, but the publishers were inexorable and 
he struggled on with his load, working till two o'clock in the 
morning, until the completion of the fourth volume, when he 
broke down and suffering from a slow, nervous fever, brought 
on by too great work and confinement and too little exercise, 
he was obliged to stop. This was about the first of June ; and 
he was not able to resume work until the middle of November. 

During June and the first half of July, he was confined to 
the house, unable to do anything more than write one or two 
letters to his brother George. About this time, his disease took 
a more serious turn and for the next two weeks he was com- 
pletely prostrated, with a raging fever and delirium, and for 
several weeks the physicians despaired of his recovery. But 
by July thirty-first, he had so far improved as to be able to dic- 
tate another letter to George. The vigor of his constitution 
gradually asserted itself and he was soon able to drive out. On 
the sixteenth of August, he dictated a letter to Howe that 
describes the progress of his disease : 

" You will find me a wreck. When I wrote you, July first, I 
seemed nearly well ; but in a few days the ship was struck again, 
and the bolt, it was said, had pierced the hull. I became very 
weak after passing through the various stages of a fever. 
During the season of my strength I rage(3 about my room for 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I33 

half the nights, invoking sleep (which once descended upon 
me so gently), in every way. One of those nights I was filled 
with the idea that I had a long interview with you, and I in- 
quired in the morning if you had not been at the house the 
night before. As my streng-fh wasted I kept to my bed. It 
was only afterwards that I knew that, at this time, all my 
friends (except Longfellow) abandoned all hope of my re- 
covery. Even Hillard, who held out long, confessed that when 
he saw me bereft of strength and almost speechless, he went 
away thinking with all others that my end was at hand. Mean- 
while I knew nothing of this anxiety. Felton laughed jollily 
each day at my bedside, and Hillard and Longfellow, the only 
other persons I saw, said nothing to excite my observation. 
But the strength of my constitution conquered; though the very 
day on which I felt within me the instinct of recovery, Dr. 
Jackson solemnly told me that my case was incurable and that 
if I should live t never should be able to do anything. To this 
I replied that I did not shrink from the idea of death; but to 
pass through life doing nothing, performing no duty, perhaps 
' a driveller and a show ' — this was more than I could bear. 
He replied, ' Perhaps the vigor of your constitution will con- 
quer all.' Since then I have been gaining strength slowly, but 
each day. I am driven out nine or ten miles daily. As I meet 
friends, I observe the astonishment with which they regard me, 
apparently as one risen from the dead. Ben Pierce said to me 
in his artless manner, ' Well ! I never expected to see you 
again.' " 

" For such a signal recovery another person would feel un- 
bounded gratitude. I am going to say what will offend you, but 
what I trust God will pardon. Since my convalescence I have 
thought much and often whether I have any just feeling of 
gratitude that my disease was arrested. Let me confess to you 
that I cannot find it in my bosom. . . . Why was I spared? 
For me there is no future either of usefulness or happiness." 

He was very much worried for fear he would come out of his 
sickness a confirmed invalid. To Longfellow he wrote, on 
August twenty-eighth : " Dr. Jackson insists that my condition 
is ' very serious ', and commends me to great care of myself. 
Perhaps he is right, and my future life is to be that of a halting 
invalid. At the thought of this — not at the idea of death, for 
of this I am careless — shadows and thick darkness descend 
upon me." And this thought seems to have pursued him for 
weeks. He recurs to it repeatedly in his letters, as the one fate 
most to be dreaded. He did not fear death. He was despond- 
ent. And, indeed, this was not an uncommon state of his mind. 



134 J-^^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

during these years, both before and after this sickness. He was 
dissatisfied with what he had been able to accomplish and with 
his prospects in life. He felt that it was so far short of what he 
had aimed at, that his career was a failure. He could welcome 
death as a release from toil and the responsibility which he 
felt life imposed, — especially when it brought no recompense 
in honor or recognized usefulness. And to live and drag out 
the miserable existence of a constant sufferer, of no use to his 
friends or humanity, but a care and charge to others, — the 
thought of this was worse than the prospect of death ! 

But he was willing to confess that his sickness had some com- 
pensations. His friends were very attentive to him. \\1iile his 
disease was at its worst, only Hillard, Longfellow and Felton 
were admitted to his room, but many others called to inquire 
after his health and sent presents of woodcocks, plovers and 
other delicacies to tempt his appetite. As he grew better others 
were admitted to his room and helped to lighten his hours. 
Bancroft had been nominated, by the Democrats, against his 
wish, for Governor, and he came with a humorous proposition 
to appoint Sumner " one of his aides-de-camp ". But when the 
election was over he found he had no offices to fill. When 
Sumner was able to drive out, numerous invitations came to 
him for visits during his convalescence. 

He gratefully mentioned this kindness in a letter to George : 
" I cannot forbear alluding, however, to the great kindness, in- 
terest and sympathy which I have received from quarters from 
which I had little occasion to expect them. Blessed be the 
kindly charities of life ! They sweeten existence and come with 
healing even to the suffering invalid. Better than before I 
know now the affection and tenderness which grace the lives of 
many, from whom I did not expect, to such an extent, these 
soft virtues. Let me extract from my sickness a moral : It 
may not be unprofitable, if it serves to elevate humanity in my 
mind, and to inspire love and attachment for my fellow-men." 

On the twenty-eighth of August, he had so far recovered as to 
be able to undertake a journey to Pittsfield, where he went by 
invitation to spend a couple of weeks with Mr. Nathan Apple- 
ton's family, who were summering there. They thought the 
bracing air of the woody hills of Berkshire would hasten his 
recovery. Hillard accompanied him and remained a week; 
and Howe, just arrived from Europe, hastened there to see 
him. He spend his days, at Pittsfield, as much as possible in 
the open air, riding horseback and in the carriage and making 
repeated excursions to Lenox and Stockbridge and other neigh- 
boring villages. At Lenox he was the guest of Mr. Samuel 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 135 

Ward and there he met the Austins, the Sedgwicks and Mrs. 
Butler (Fanny Kemble). This gifted woman was then making 
her home tliere and, in the parlor of the Sedgwicks, he heard 
her read " Macbeth," and sing, and enjoyed the charm of her 
conversation. 

This picture, he gives us, of his life at Pittsfleld and Lenox. 
On Saturday he went with Edward Austin in an open buggy 
to view the farms. Afterwards they looked on while the girls 
and others enjoyed the sport of archery. " The next day was 
Sunday, and I was perplexed whether or not to use Mr. New- 
ton's horse, as I presumed the master never used him on Sun- 
day. But my scruples gave way before my longing for the best 
of exercise. I left Pittsfleld as the bell was tolling for church 
and arrived at Lenox sometime before the second bell. I sat 
in Miss Sedgwick's room ; time passed on. Mrs. Butler pro- 
posed to accompany me back to Pittsfleld on horseback. I 
stayed to the cold dinner, making it a lunch; time again 
passed on, from the delay in saddling the horses. We rode the 
longest way, and I enjoyed my companion very much. I did 
not reach home till four and a half o'clock. Meanwhile the 
whole liouse had been filled with anxiety on my account." 

But with all this pleasure, he did not forget to repeatedly 
intercede with the Governor of the Commonwealth, whom he 
met there, to appoint his friend Luther S. Gushing, a judge of 
the Gommon Pleas Gourt. And Gushing shortly afterM'ards 
received the appointment. 

From Lenox, Sumner went to ISTewport, where his brother 
Albert had a cottage, hoping that the ocean breezes would sup- 
plement the benefits he had received from the Berkshire Hills. 
Here he resorted again to his favorite exercise of horseback 
riding, spending the days, as much as possible, in the open air 
and the nights in sleep. He soon felt the efi^ects of both in an 
abundant return of health. On September thirtieth, he wrote 
Howe : " I am so well that I begin to tire of my intellectual 
inactivity and yearn to plunge again into my affairs. I shall 
be with you at the beginning of next week well mended." 

But sad tidings from Julia cut his visit at Newport short. 
The word was that Mary was failing rapidly and they feared 
the end was near. 

He hurried home to see their worst fears realized. She passed 
away on Friday morning, October eleventh, 1844, and was 
buried the following Sunday afternoon. 

Two days later, in communicating the intelligence to George, 
Gharles M^rote : " I was recalled from Newport, where I was 
passing my time in exercise in the open air, by the tidings of 



13G LIFE OF CHARLES SUM:MER 

the progress of Mary's disease. I found her weak, very weak, 
— ahiiost voiceless. Her beautiful countenance was sunken; 
and the sharp angles of death had appeared even before the 
breath had departed. She lingered on, however, — sometimes 
in considerable pain — and we feared with each protracted day 
new suffering. She herself wished to die ; and I believe that we 
all became anxious at last that the Angel should descend to 
bear her aloft. From the beautiful flower of her life, the leaves 
had all gently fallen to the earth ; and there remained but little 
for the hand of death to pluck. During the night preceding 
the morning on which she left us, she slept like a child, and 
within a short time of her death, when asked if she were in pain, 
she said : ' ISTo : angels are taking care of me ! ' " 

For more than two years she had been in failing health. Her 
disease finally developed into consumption, to which the family 
had an hereditary tendency, and, during the summer and fall 
of 1844, it made rapid progress. She and Charles were both 
sick at the same time, confined to their rooms at home, and the 
care of them was a severe experience to their mother and Julia. 
The burden of it fell on the mother. While Charles' disease 
was at its worst, she nursed him and then, as he improved, she 
turned to Mary, who was sinking rapidly. For some weeks 
Mary was taken to Springfield and Waltham, hoping that a 
change would prove beneficial, but with the gleams of hope and 
seeming improvement, peculiar to this disease, which charms its 
victims, while it steals its coils about them, she faded away and 
soon came home to die. 

Her death was a sad stroke to Charles. She was his favorite 
and the most beautiful of his sisters. She had a lovely disposi- 
tion. Having reached young womanhood, while he was in 
Europe, when he returned to enter upon the most enjoyable 
years of his young manhood, he found her a delightful com- 
panion. She was tall, finely formed and graceful, with a clear- 
cut Grecian face, enjoying society and deservedly popular. He 
found much pleasure and pride in their association. Her un- 
expected sickness, coming just as life was opening before her, 
with so much promise of happiness both for herself and others, 
the long, slow but irresistible decline, as irresistible and pitiless 
as fate, which he was doomed to watch with so much solicitude 
and yet feel himself powerless to avert, his descent into the very 
valley of the shadow, at her side, to be afterwards rescued, just 
as the final blow descended upon her, to be hurried home to see 
her laid away, where the winds of winter were already sweeping 
the grave of her young life, to go back to their old home that 
hardly seemed home without her and then be obliged to turn 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 137 

to his own solitary ceaseless task, with this dark background of 
thought, — was a sad experience. He always regarded it as 
one of the saddest of his life. The familiar figure, in life's 
opening hardly conscious of its own beauty, the quiet, sweet 
disposition, spreading its gentle, womanly spirit over his life, 
was gone. And yet, not gone; — for it lingered, in memory, 
forever ! 

With the beginning of November, he was back at his work 
again. His " friction-match " case, which has already been 
noticed, was his first serious employment. The suit for damages 
was tried to a jury and resulted in a verdict for his client. In 
the argument of it, Sumner spoke ten hours, — arguments were 
longer then than now. Closing this business, he resumed work 
on his edition of Vesey, When his sickness overtook him, he 
was obliged to give it up and the publishers employed others to 
continue his work. In this way the fifth volume was edited 
by J. C. Perkins, of Salem, Sumner hoping that with this 
assistance he would be able to continue the others. And he did 
finish the sixth. But then he again broke down and, during 
his sickness, the seventh to the twelfth volumes inclusive were 
edited by Mr, Perkins and Mr. Charles B. Goodrich. Sumner 
finished the others. It occupied him fully for the next six 
months and before it was finished, he was compelled to realize 
again the drudgery of his task. One feature he added to it, 
unusual then and still so in law books ; he inserted sketches of 
the lives of the judges and others whose names appeared in the 
reports. 

He soon fell back into his old habit of working late into the 
night. Writing to his brother George, on December thirty-first, 
he said : " It is now almost midnight, — an hour after the time 
when my physicians sentenced me to bed. In truth, however, I 
am not very regardful of their injunctions. These late hours, — 
the crown of the night — are the choicest of the twenty-four for 
labor, for reading and thought ; and I feel guilty of a wasteful 
excess when I sacrifice them to sleep." He withdrew from 
society and avoided assemblages of people, but he relaxed this 
rigorous life, during the holidays, to dine one day with Mr. 
Webster and enjoy a turbot, a tribute sent to him from Eng- 
land. On the third day of June, 1845, he wrote Lieber, that 
his edition of Vesey's Keports was finished. It was_ dedicated 
to Judge Story, as a token of gi-atitude and admiration, which 
the judge gracefully acknowledged. 

This was Sumner's first venture in authorship, if we except 
his contributions to law magazines and periodicals. With this 
latter sort of writing he had considerable experience. Com- 



138 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

menacing with his labors, as one of the editors of the Jurist, 
before he went to Europe, he continued it after his return, by 
numerous contributions to the Law Reporter and an occa- 
sional one to the North American Review. The Law Reporter 
was edited by Peleg W. Chandler, one of Sumner's friends, an 
attorney whose office was at Number Four, Court Street. 
Sumner wrote reviews of " Story's Bills of Exchange " and 
of the reports of New Hampshire and Maine, of " Wedgewood's 
U. S. Statutes " and " Perkins' Brown's Chancery Reports," 
articles on " The Eightieth Birthday of Chancellor Kent," 
'• The University of Heidelberg," " The Number Seven," 
" Punishment and Prisons," etc. His contributions to the 
Reporter, like those in the Jurist, show him to have had more 
interest, in the literature of the law, than in the law itself; 
and, indeed, many of his articles for these periodicals would 
now hardly be classed as matter for a legal publication. But 
they all show his wealth of learning, his wide reading, his mar- 
vellous memory and his easy, flowing style. 

Too much importance can hardly be given the effect of his 
work on these legal periodicals on Sumner's career. He was 
estimated a good writer among his classmates in college, but 
his performances there do not rank as of any permanent im- 
portance. But the daily practice of writing, given by his posi- 
tion as one of the editors of the Jurist, formed his style 
upon the severe model of clear, pure, practical English, at a 
very early period of his life. It taught him thoroughly what 
was good English and made him quick to recognize and ap- 
preciate it, when it appeared in the form of new books, as in the 
histories of Prescott and Bancroft. And it taught him the 
ways and habits of editors of newspapers and periodicals and 
gave an intimate acquaintance with those of Boston, his home 
city, and of his State. All through his after-life these things 
were of great advantage to him. He could promptly write a 
creditable review of a book or a friendly notice of a man and 
secure their publication ; and thus bring either to the favorable 
notice of the public and, what was frequently of more impor- 
tance, of the editors. This ability of Sumner, with his prompt- 
ness to use it, in behalf of his friends, made his friendship, 
even in these early days, valuable with such men as Prescott 
and Bancroft, Longfellow and Whittier, and Emerson and 
Story. 

And theirs was powerful for him. It was such men as these 
that opened the door of his extraordinary career as a traveller 
in England and even on the Continent. The people he met 
there were also quick to recognize and appreciate such ability. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 139 

They felt that what he saw and heard would in all probability 
reach, in some form, a wider audience and they were, therefore, 
more willing to extend his opportunities for information, as 
well as pleasure. 

It is not to be understood that these beautiful friendships, 
that have been mentioned, sprung from selfish considerations. 
Far from it ! They were, by far the greater part, owing to the 
charming personality of the men, who formed and cherished 
them, and the disinterested atfeetion, I may also add, they en- 
tertained for one another. But notwithstanding, in reviewing 
Sumner's life, the practical lessons to be drawn from it must 
not be overlooked. They loved and therefore they helped one 
another and this was one of Sumner's ways of helping them. 
He then expected his own career to be made by his pen. 

It was not till May, 1845, that he made his first public ad- 
dress before a popular audience. It was on the occasion of a 
meeting of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, held in Park 
Street Church. The secretary of the society read the annual 
reports in which he took strong grounds against the system of 
solitary confinement, as pursued in the Pennsylvania Peni- 
tentiary, at Philadelphia. Howe and Sumner were present. 
Both had taken some interest in the subject, which was then 
more discussed than now. When they heard this system, as 
they thought, unjustly assailed, Howe arose in its defence ; and 
Sumner followed him with a few impromptu remarks. The 
discussion their remarks provoked, led to the appointment of a 
committee, which included both Howe and Sumner, to visit 
the Philadelphia prisons and make a detailed report, from 
actual observation, of their operation. The results of his ob- 
servation Sumner embodied in an article published two years 
later, in the Christian Examiner, upon the occasion of the 
erection of a new jail in Boston. He then urged with some 
earnestness the adoption of the system of separate confinement 
of criminals as pursued in the penitentiaries and some of the 
jails of Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER XIII 

CHOSEN ORATOR FOR JULY 4, 1845 — THE OCCASION — THE ORA- 
TION ON " THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS " — THE PUB- 
LIC DINNER — ESTIMATES OF THE ORATION — JUDGE STORY's 
DEATH — SUMNER's TRIBUTE 

In 1845, Sumner was chosen to deliver the Fourth of July- 
oration before the authorities and citizens of Boston. The 
occasion had been regularly celebrated, with this oration and 
other appropriate exercises, each year since the close of the 
Revolutionary War. In no other place had more been made of 
the occasion than in Boston. It had early been recognized by 
the mother country as the most rebellious and defiant city of 
the colonies and repressive measures were there soonest tried 
to reduce her to subjection, but the more repressive the 
measures, the higher rose the spirit of resistance among her 
people. It was in her harbor that the British tea was thrown 
overboard. This tea was treated by the colonists as the first 
appearance of articles of their consumption, on which they were 
to be taxed without representation. On her streets, in the Bos- 
ton Massacre, the first blood of the struggle was shed, and in 
her neighborhood, at Lexington and Concord, were the earliest 
skirmishes of the Revolution ; and, on her Bunker Hill, the first 
organized battle, between the raw militia of the colonists and 
the disciplined troops of Great Britain, was fought. In the war 
which followed Massachusetts furnished one soldier for every 
three enlisted. 

Such facts supplied much inspiration for a Fourth of July 
oration. Among a people, who have always felt a just pride in 
them, a sympathetic audience was always to be found. The 
orators selected for the occasion, had usually been men of about 
Sumner's age. It was a good opportunity for a young man to 
show the material that was in him ; for to the large audience, 
before which he appeared, there was to be added the much 
larger, to which the printed address afterwards went ; it being 
the custom for the city to publish the orations, after their 
delivery. 

Sumner was notified of his appointment on April twenty- 
fourth. At first, probably mistrusting his fitness for the place 
140 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 141 

he was disposed to decline it. ' But Hillard, Howe, Peleg W. 
Chandler and other friends urged him to accept it and he did. 
He then encountered some difficulty in the choice of a subject. 
Almost three years before, in acknowledging the receipt of a 
copy of his Fourth of July oration from Rev. Edgar Bucking- 
ham, Sumner wrote: 

" I thank you very much for the oration you were so good 
as to send me. I admire the frankness and spirit with which 
you turned the celebration of the Fourth of July to an occasion 
for moral improvement. I wish that forever this day might 
be set apart throughout the whole country as the National Sab- 
bath, to be employed in earnest inquiry into the real condition 
of public affairs, and in strengthening the foundations of moral 
principles and of concord. It should not be ushered in by the 
sound and smoke of cannons. Let it be a day of peace, and of 
those thoughts that flow from peace." 

The orator had turned aside from the ordinary review of the 
events which led up to the struggle and the events of the war 
and the customary eulogy of the valor of the American troops, 
which has made the name of Fourth of July oratory synonymous 
with fulsome and spread-eagle speech, to the existing condition 
of the country and some growing evils, for which a remedy 
should be found. Among these he instanced slavery, a part of 
the oration which, Sumner wrote him, he particularly liked and 
hoped would be " responded to by the universal heart of the 
North." An incidental protest too, against devoting the day 
to thoughts of war and military glory, instead of moral and 
intellectual improvement, attracted the attention of Sumner, 
when in search of a subject and probably determined his choice. 

The title of his oration was " The True Grandeur of Na- 
tions". It was in fact, an eloquent plea for universal peace. 
This was a subject, as we have already seen, that had interested 
Sumner for years. His letters contained frequent references 
to it, as called forth by occasion, and whenever he expressed 
himself he showed how deep were his convictions. The annexa- 
tion of Texas which was then being much discussed, as a pend- 
ing national question, and which was consummated the same 
summer, then threatened, and was shortly after followed, by 
the Mexican War, inspired by the hardly concealed purpose, 
on the part of its chief supporters, of acquiring more territory, 
out of which to carve slave states, gave at the time a very 
practical turn to the thoughts in Sumner's oration. There was 
also talk of war, growing out of the Oregon boundary troubles, 
with England. 



]^42 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

The occasion was all that any one could wish. The day- 
dawned a beautiful one, and was ushered in, with the booming 
of cannon, the ringing of bells and tlie firing of crackers by 
boys in the streets and upon the Common. The city was gayly 
decorated with flags and bunting and its streets were soon alive 
with its population, in holiday attire, and with people, who had 
come in from the surrounding country, to unite in the celebra- 
tion. The U. S. battle-ship Ohio, then stationed in the harbor, 
was also decorated with flags to the water's edge and fired 
guns at intervals. An efl'ort had been made to make the mili- 
tary display greater than ever before. The U. S. troops sta- 
tioned at the neighboring fortifications, the crew of the Ohio 
and the local militia, had all been invited to participate. 

Promptly at ten and one-half o'clock the procession headed 
by Sumner and the Mayor, followed by the city council, the 
military and naval organizations, in full unifoi-m, with bris- 
tling bayonets and arms gleaming in the sunshine, attended by 
bands of martial music, marched from the City Hall to Tre- 
mont Temple, where the exercises were held. The hall was soon 
filled by an audience of two thousand people. A choir of a 
hundred voices, composed of children, selected from the public 
schools, all dressed in white, occupied the rear of the stage, 
while the front was occupied by distinguished men. The mili- 
tary occupied the front seats. After an invocation by the min- 
ister, the reading of the Declaration of Independence and a 
song by the choir, Sumner was introduced. 

As "he stepped out upon the stage, and, as it afterwards 
proved, into public life, he appeared the embodiment of manly 
beauty. He stood six feet three inches in height, weighing about 
one hundred and seventy-five pounds. In his earlier years he 
had grown rapidly and was tall and very slender and somewhat 
stooped, but this had now disappeared and he stood before his 
audience erect, handsomely proportioned, a splendid specimen 
of vigorous manhood. He wore a dress-coat, with brass buttons 
after the fashion of that time, with white waistcoat and 
trousers. He commenced his oration, in a measured tone of 
voice, yet loud enough to be heard throughout the hall: 

" In accordance with uninterrupted usage, on this Sabbath of 
the Nation, we have put aside our daily cares, and seized a res- 
pite from the never-ending toils of life, to meet in gladness and 
congratulation, mindful of the blessings transmitted from the 
Past, mindful also, I trust, of our duties to the Present and the 
Future." 

" All hearts turn first to the Fathers of the Kepublic. Their 
venerable forms rise before us, in the procession of successive 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 143 

generations. They come from the frozen rock of Plymouth, 
from the wasted bands of Ealeigh, from the heavenly com- 
panionship of Penn, from the anxious councils of the Revolu- 
tion, — from all those fields of sacrifice, where in obedience to 
the spirit of their age, they sealed their devotion to duty with 
their blood. They say to us their children ; Cease to vaunt what 
you do, and what has been done for you. Learn to walk meekly 
and to think humbly. Cultivate habits of self-sacrifice. Never 
aim at what is not right, persuaded that without this, every 
possession and all knowledge will become an evil and a shame, 
and may these words of ours be ever in your minds ! Strive to 
increase tlie inheritance we have bequeathed to you, — bearing in 
mind always, that, if we excel you in virtue, such a victory will 
be to us a mortification, while defeat will bring happiness. In 
this way you may conquer us. Notliing is more shameful for a 
man than a claim to esteem, not on his own merits, but on the 
fame of his ancestors. The glory of the fathers is doubtless to 
their children a most precious treasure; but to enjoy it without 
transmission to the next generation, and without addition is the 
extreme of ignominy. Following these counsels, when your days 
on earth are finished, you will come to join us and we shall 
receive you as friend receives friend; but if you neglect our 
words, expect no happy greeting from us." 

" Honor to the memory of our fathers ! May the turf lie 
lightly on their sacred graves ! Not in words only, but in deeds 
also, let us testify our reverence for their name, imitating what 
in them was lofty, pure and good, learning from them to bear 
hardship and privation. May we, who now reap in strength 
what they sowed in weakness, augment the inheritance we have 
received ! To this end we must not fold our hands in slumber, 
nor abide content with tlie past. To each generation is ap- 
pointed its peculiar task ; nor does the heart which responds to 
the call of duty find rest except in the grave." 

With this general introduction and brief reference to the 
past, he turned to the future. There was no further reference 
to the Revolution or the past of the Republic or the career of the 
Colonists, except only one or two and these the briefest, and 
by way of illustrating his argument. Once he referred to the 
peaceable example of William Penn in his treatment of the In- 
dians, in whose footprints smiled " the flowers of prosperity ", 
his people "unmolested and happy, while (sad but true con- 
trast!) other colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, 
building forts and showing themselves in arms, were harassed by 
perpetual alarm, and pierced by the sharp arrows of savage 
war." Again he insisted that Washington did not rise "to a 



144 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

truly heavenly stature ", when crossing the Delaware, through 
ice, to capture Trenton, nor when victorious over Cornwallis at 
Yorktown, but when " in noble deference to justice, refusing the 
kingly crown." He laid ours as he did other history under 
tribute to illustrate his argument, but for this only he looked to 
the past ; his interest was with the future. The question before 
him was : " What can we do to make our coming welcome to our 
fathers in the skies and draw to our memory hereafter the 
homage of a grateful posterity ? " He proposed to consider 
" what in our age are the true objects of national ambition, — 
what is truly National Honor, National Glory?" 

He was prompt to declare that this question was of urgent 
interest from transactions in which they were then involved. 
" By an act of unjust legislation, extending our power over 
Texas," he declared, " peace with Mexico is endangered, — 
while by petulant assertion of a disputed claim to a remote ter- 
ritory beyond the Kocky Mountains, ancient fires of hostile 
strife are kindled anew on the hearth of our mother country. 
Mexico and England both avow the determination to vindicate 
what is called the National Honor; and our Government calmly 
contemplates the dread Arbitrament of War, provided it cannot 
obtain what is called an honorable peace." 

" Far from our nation and our age be the sin and shame of 
contests hateful in the sight of God and all good men, having 
their origin in no righteous sentiment, no true love of country, 
no generous thirst for fame, ' that last infirmity of noble minds * 
but springing manifestly from an ignorant and ignoble passion 
for new territory, strengthened, in our case, in a republic, whose 
star is Liberty, by unnatural desire to add new links in chains 
destined yet to fall from the limbs of the unhappy slave ! In 
such contrasts God has no attribute which can join with us. 
Who believes that the national honor would be promoted by a 
war with Mexico or a war with England ? " . . . "A war with 
Mexico would be mean and cowardly, with England it would be 
bold at least, though parricidal." 

As the orator proceeded, he warmed to his subject, his voice 
became clearer and louder, rising and falling in easy cadences, 
filling the hall and holding the undivided attention of his great 
audience; his gestures, apparently unstudied, were free and 
emphasized his meaning ; liis manner uniformly gave the im- 
pression of sincerity and deep earnestness and occasionally, as 
he recounted the horrors and wastefulness of war, amounted to 
intensity. 

He spoke for two hours, entirely from memory, unaided by 
notes, except for figures and statistics. The oration seemed 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 145 

to impress the audience as unusual and worthy of an attentive 
hearing, once or twice, as when he intruded upon the politics 
of some of his hearers, by attacking the course of the adminis- 
tration, in the annexation of Texas, or made an illustration of 
the likeness of a wild beast, which one of the military organiza- 
tions present, wore as a device, a stir of disapproval appeared; 
but it quickly gave place to respectful deference to the manifest 
sincerity and candor of the speaker. 

He dwelt first on the brutal and debasing character of war, 
the misery it entailed, cutting the peaceful bands of commerce 
that bind mankind together, man to man and nation to nation, 
and scattering, as a pestilence, the earth, with death and wasting 
despair. He condemned it as utterly insufficient to settle any 
question of justice or injustice, of right or wrong. He then 
considered the prejudices by which it is sustained, — the belief in 
its necessity, the practice of nations and even of Christian 
ministers in upholding it, " the point of honor,'* and the pride 
of country. He emphasized the preparation for war, in time of 
peace, as wasteful and unnecessary. He inquired in succession 
of what use was the army, the fortifications and the militia? 
He denounced with unsparing words the maxim " in time of 
peace prepare for war." He Ijade all hail the day when Peace, 
with its blessings of intellectual and moral supremacy, would 
dawn upon the world and the nations learn war no more ! 

The climax of the oration was reached when he drew a com- 
parison between the literary and charitable institutions of Mas- 
sachusetts and the battleship Ohio, then lying in the harbor, and 
other U. S. war vessels. His audience was familiar with the 
good work, which these institutions had done, in the community, 
and knew something of the extent of their endowments; but 
few of them knew the costs of construction and of the main- 
tenance of the battleship. They were, therefore, not prepared 
for the comparison he made and the practical lesson he drew 
from it, of the cost of war. It made a decided impression. 

" Within cannon range of this city stands an institution of 
learning," he said, " which was one of the earliest cares of our 
forefathers, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child in an 
age of trial and struggle, carefully nursed through a period of 
hardship and anxiety, — endowed at the time by the oblations of 
men like Harvard, — sustained from its foundation by the pa- 
rental arm of the Commonwealth, by a constant succession of 
munificent bequests, and by the prayers of good men, — the 
University of Cambridge now invites our homage as the most 
ancient, most interesting and most important seat of learning 
in the land, — possessing the oldest and most valuable library. 



146 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



one of the largest museums of mineralogy and natural history, 

with a School of Law, which annually receives into its bosom 

more than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the 
Union, where they listen to instruction from professors whose 
names are among the most valuable possessions of the land, — 
also a School of Divinity, fount of true learning and piety, — 
also one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine 
in the country, — and besides these, a general body of teachers, 
twenty-seven in number, many of whose names help to keep the 
name of the country respectable in every part of the globe, where 
science, learning and taste are cherished, — the whole presided 
over at this moment by a gentleman (Hon. Josiah Quincy) early 
distinguished in public life by unconquerable energy and mas- 
culine eloquence, at a later period by the unsurpassed ability 
with which he adminstered the afEairs of our city, and now, in a 
green old age, full of years and honors, preparing to lay down 
his present high trust. Such is Harvard University, and as 
one of the humblest of her children, happy in the memories of 
a youth nurtured in her classic retreats, I cannot allude to her 
without an expression of filial affection and respect." 

" It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer that the 
whole available property of the University, the various accu- 
mulation of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to 
$703,175." 

" Change the scene, and cast your eyes upon another object. 
There now swings idly at her moorings in this harbor a ship 
of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety gims, finished- as late as 
1836, at an expense of $54:7,888,— repaired only two years 
afterwards, in 1838, for $233,013, with an armament which has 
cost $53,945, — making an aggregate of $834,845, as the actual 
outlay at this moment for that single ship, — more than $100,- 
000, beyond all the available wealth of the richest and most 
ancient seat of learning in the land ! Choose ye, my fellow- 
citizens of a Christian State, between the two caskets, — that 
wherein is the loveliness of truth, or that which contains the 
carrion of death." 

" I refer to the Ohio because this ship happens to be in our 
waters; but I do not take the strongest case afforded by our 
Navy. Other ships have absorbed larger sums. The expense of 
the Delaware, in 1842, had reached $1,051,000." 

" Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of 
the University during tlie last year, for the general purposes of 
the College, the instruction of the undergraduates ; and for the 
Schools of Law and Divinity, amounted to $47,935. The cost 
of the Ohio for one year of service, in salaries, wages and provi- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 147 

sions is $220,000,— being $172,000 above the annual expendi- 
tures of the University, and more than four times as much as 
those expenditures. In other words for the annual sum lavished 
on a single ship of the line, four institutions like Harvard Uni- 
versity might be supported." 

" Furthermore, the pay of a captain of a ship like the Ohio is 
$4,500, when in the service, — $3,500, when on leave of absence, 
or off duty. The salary of the President of Harvard University 
is $3,235, without leave of absence and never off duty." 

" If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed 
by comparison with a single ship of the line, how must it be with 
other institutions of learning and beneficence, less favored by 
the bounty of many generations? The average cost of a sloop 
of war is $315,000, — more probably than all the endowments of 
those t-Cv^in stars of learning in the Western part of Massachu- 
setts, the Colleges at Williamstown and Amherst, and of that 
single star in the East, the guide to many ingenuous youth, the 
Seminary at Andover. The yearly expense of a sloop of war in 
the service is about $50,000, more than the annual expenditures 
of these three institutions combined." 

" 1 might press the comparison with other institutions of 
beneficence, — with our annual appropriations for the Blind, 
that noble and successful charity which sheds luster upon the 
Commonwealth, amounting to $12,000, and for the Insane, an- 
other charity dear to humanity, amounting to $27,84-4." 

" Take all the institutions of Learning and Beneficence, the 
crown jewels of the Commonwealth, schools, colleges, hospitals, 
asylums, and the sums by which they have been purchased and 
preserved are trivial and beggarly, compared with the treasures 
squandered within the borders of Massachusetts in vain prep- 
arations for War, — and upon the Navy Yard at Charlestown, 
with its stores on hand, costing $4,741,000, — the fortifications 
in the harbors of Massachusetts, where untold sums are already 
sunk, and it is now proposed to sink $3,875,000 more, — and the 
Arsenal at Springfield, containing in 1842, 175,118 muskets, 
valued at $2,099,998, and maintained by an annual appropria- 
tion of $200,000, whose highest value will ever be, in the judg- 
ment of all lovers of truth, that it inspired a poem which in in- 
fluence will be mightier than a battle, and will endure when 
arsenals and fortifications have crumbled to earth. Some of 
the verses of this Psalm of Peace relieve the details of statistics, 
while they happily blend with my argument." 

" '"Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps apd courts, 



148 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
There were no need of arsenals or forts; 

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred, 

And every nation that should lift again 
Its hand against a brother on his forehead 

Would wear forever more the curse of Cain.' " 

Sumner came directly to the answer of the question pro- 
pounded in his subject. The True Grandeur of Nations, when 
near the close of his oration, he said : " The True Greatness of 
a Nation cannot be in triumphs of the intellect alone. Litera- 
ture and art may enlarge the sphere of its influence ; they may 
adorn it ; but in their nature they are but accessories. The True 
Grandeur of Humanity is in the moral elevation, sustained, en- 
lightened and decorated by the intellect of man. The surest 
tokens of this grandeur in a nation are that Christian Benefi- 
cence which diffuses the greatest happiness among all, and tJiat 
passionless, god-like Justice which controls the relations of the 
nation to other nations, and to all the people committed to its 
charge. ..." 

" Oh, let it not be in the future ages as in those we now con- 
template ! Let the grandeur of man be discerned, not in bloody 
victory or ravenous conquest but in the blessing he has secured, 
in the good he has accomplished, in the triumphs of Justice 
and Beneficence, in the establishment of Perpetual Peace ! " 

Sumner did not claim that all wars were wrong; for he ex- 
cepted defensive wars, occurring when a nation was unjustly 
assailed and no recourse was left it, but self-defence or destruc- 
tion. He believed that, however wrong on the part of the ag- 
gressor, it was the duty of the nation thus assailed to defend 
itself. But he fearlessly maintained that every act of aggression 
by one nation upon another, on some frivolous pretext, but in 
reality for the acquisition of territory, that did not rightfully 
belong to it, was morally wrong. He maintained that a nation, 
like an individual, was answerable for it, in the sight of God 
and all good men. 

The illustrations that he had in mind were the prospective 
wars with Mexico and England, growing out of our claims in 
Texas and Oregon. He thought both claims were without right- 
ful foundations and that Texas was sought to secure the exten- 
sion of slavery, to which he was unalterably opposed. The 
Oregon dispute was soon afterward settled by peaceful negotia- 
tions. But Texas was annexed and the Mexican War followed, 
it became a slave state, a part of her territory was incorporated 
in Kansas, also sought to be made a slave state; other parts 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I49 

went to make up New Mexico, Indian Territory and Colorado, 
ominous locations; the parent territory became one of the 
secedinoj Confederate States and sustained with her blood and 
treasure the War of the Rebellion, a consummation, which even 
the anxious eye of Sumner did not then foresee, in its entirety. 
But he saw enough to condemn the project unsparingly. Orig- 
inally a part of Mexico and for only a few years maintaining 
a disputed and uncertain independence, he believed the United 
States should not be permitted to become embroiled in the 
troubles of Texas so as to create a pretext for her annexation. 

To take what did not belong to a man, merely by right of 
superior strength, lie believed to be robbery ; and he did not 
esteem it anything less when accomplished by the aggregation 
of men composing a nation. The numbers engaged could not 
change the morality of the act in his eyes and for such cause 
he would not silently see the treasure of the nation consumed. 
He thought the maintenance of such a war establishment as the 
United States then had, in time of peace, when no enemy was 
near, encouraged her to seek such occasions to show her strength 
and should be abolished ; and the treasure thus expended saved 
for the promotion of intelligence, righteousness and religion. 

His speech was an eloquent plea for universal peace, a condi- 
tion generally considered to be far beyond the reach of living 
generations; but it was an urgent appeal to all that is best in 
our nature to lend its aid to this cause. The oration revealed 
a lofty nature, filled with the love of justice, and morality, 
a cultured mind, stored with the rich fruits of hard study, a 
high ideal, placing its standard far in advance of the position 
of its own generation and a determined purpose to bring civ- 
ilization up to it. It was an earnest of Sumner's life-work. 

But the oration did not meet with universal approval. At 
the public dinner, given in Faneuil Hall, immediately after the 
exercises in Tremont Temple, the feeling of dissent, that had 
so far been hardly concealed, broke out and composed the 
burden of the responses, to a number of the toasts. The officers 
of the military and naval organizations, that had taken part in 
the parade, at first hesitated, but finally consented to be present 
at the dinner. Sumner had made some unrelished allusions 
to them. Referring to the militia he had, for example, said : 
" And when the youth becomes a man, liis country invites his 
services in war and holds before his bewildered imagination, the 
prizes of worldly honor. . . . The contagion spreads beyond 
those subjects to positive obligation. Peaceful citizens volun- 
teer to appear as soldiers, and affect in dress, arms and deport- 
ment, what is called the ' pride, pomp and circumstance of 



150 J^^FE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 

glorious war,' The ear-piercing fife has to-day filled our streets 
and we have come to this church, on this National Sahbath, at- 
tended by the tlmmp of drum and with the parade of bristling 
bayonets." This and some similar allusions were resented by 
the soldiers. Having been invited to be present and take part, 
these references were regretted by some of the audience. 

This may have influenced some of the speakers at the dinner. 
Sumner's friend, John G. Palfrey, led off in the dissent, and 
he was followed by Eobert C. Winthrop, who closed by an- 
nouncing this toast, afterwards somewhat notorious : " Our 
country, bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however 
otherwise bounded or described ; and be the measurements more 
or less, still our country to be cherished in all our hearts, to be 
defended by all our hands." Others followed; some of them ap- 
proaching coarseness in their allusions to the oration ; and even 
these received unmistakable evidence of approbation from their 
hearers. Sumner sat by Winthrop and heard all, apparently 
without resentment and with hardly any perceptible embarrass- 
ment. In his own thoughts, he probably felt content to leave 
the issue with the larger audience, by which he hoped his effort 
would live to be tried. 

At the close, Peleg W. Chandler, who presided, sought "to 
pour oil on the troubled waters," by some good-humored refer- 
ences to the oration and the toasts, that caused a little merri- 
ment and restored a better feeling. He then announced the 
toast : " The orator of the day ! However much we may differ 
from his sentiments, let us admire the simplicity, manliness 
and ability with which he has expressed them." Sumner re- 
sponded briefly, saying he would not follow with one word the 
apple of discord, he seemed to have thrown into the exercises of 
the occasion, and closed by adding that, however much they 
might differ as to the principles he had advocated, he was sure 
there was one sentiment they would all approve and that was 
admiration for the youthful choristers, who had gladdened the 
occasion, with the music of their voices. He proposed the toast : 
"The youthful choristers of the day! May their future lives 
be filled with happiness, as they have to-day filled our hearts 
with the delight of their music ! " 

The dignity with which he bore himself, the absence of all 
appearance of resentment and the tact 'with which he turned 
discussion from himself helped to disarm criticism and left a 
favorable impression upon those present at the dinner, though 
he had not retracted any of his previously expressed convictions. 

The impression made by the oration upon the general public 
was a remarkable one. The demand for printed copies was un- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 151 

precedented. Eight editions of it were issued in America and 
two in England, within a year, making about ten thousand 
copies that came from the press in that time. Other editions 
have since been printed. It was distributed as a tract by the 
Peace Societies of Boston, Philadelphia, Liverpool and London ; 
and it is still printed for this purpose. In this and other ways 
copies of it were distributed systematically to many newspapers 
in America and Great Britain and to many of their leading 
statesmen and publicists. Many of the newspapers to which it 
was sent, noticed it and some of them printed extracts from it, 
in their columns ; the religious papers generally approved its 
doctrines while the secular ones generally criticised them as im- 
practicable ; but all that discussed it agreed in commending the 
learning and eloquence which it displayed. 

The same remarkable character of the oration was attested 
by private communications which Sumner received. But many 
of these frankly expressed dissent. Old Jeremiah Mason, 
always original and always to the point, bluntly told him that 
" an anti-war society is as little practicable as an anti-thunder- 
and-lightning society." 

William H. Prescott wrote, he could not go along with him 
in the expression of the sentiment, " There can be no war that is 
not dishonorable ", when he remembered Marathon, Morgarten, 
Bannockburn, Bunker Hill, the wars of the Low Countries, — 
all those wars which have had and which are yet to have free- 
dom for their object. " I can't acquiesce in your sweeping de- 
nunciation, my good friend." He added, " I admire your moral 
courage in delivering your sentiments so plainly in the face of 
that thick array. ... I may one day see you on a crusade to 
persuade the great Autocrat to disband his millions of fighting 
men, and little Queen Vic to lay up her steamships in lavender ! 
You have scattered right and left the seeds of a sound and en- 
nobling morality, which may spring up in a bountiful harvest, 
I trust, — in the millennium; but I doubt." 

John A. Andrew, afterwards the War Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, wrote, in different vein : " You will allow me to say 
that I have read the oration with a satisfaction only equalled by 
that with which I heard you on the fourth of July. And while 
I thank you a thousand times for the choice you made of a topic, 
as well as for the fidelity and brilliant ability which you brought 
to its illustration, (both to my mind, defying the most carping 
criticism), I cannot help expressing also my gratitude to Prov- 
idence, that here in our city of Boston, one has at last stepped 
forward to consecrate to celestial hopes the day — the great day 



152 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

— which Americans have at best heretofore held sacred only to 

memory." 

Judge Story wrote thanking him for a copy of it and added : 
" I have read it with uncommon interest and care, as you might 
well suppose, as well on your own account as from the various 
voices of fame which succeeded the delivery. It is certainly a 
very striking production, and will fully sustain your reputation 
for high talents, various reading and exact scholarship. There 
are a great many passages in it which are wrought out with an 
exquisite finish and elegance of diction and classical beauty. I 
go earnestly and heartily along with many of your sentiments 
and opinions. They are such as befit an exalted mind and an 
enlarged benevolence. But from the length and breadth of 
your doctrine as to war, I am compelled to dissent. In my judg- 
ment, war is under some (although I agree, not under many) 
circumstances, not only justifiable but an indispensable part of 
public duty." 

" I have spoken in all frankness to you because I know that 
3'-ou will understand your friends too well to wish them to sup- 
press their own opinions; but be assured that no one cherishes 
with more fond and affectionate pride the continual advance- 
ment of your professional and literary fame than myself, and 
no one has a deeper reverence for your character and virtues. 
Believe me, as ever, most truly and affectionately." 

It will be noticed that these are expressions from men of 
world-wide reputation upon the effort of a young gentleman 
hardly past thirty-four years of age on his first studied appear- 
ance before a popular audience. Sumner received many other 
letters from persons, at home and abroad. Perhaps no oration 
in the history of modern literature ever had a success at once so 
immediate and so permanent. 

It influenced the course of Sumner's life. Until the fourth 
of July, 1845, he had not known the powers of oratory he pos- 
sessed, but that day brought a revelation to him as well as to 
the public. For several years, a disposition to despondency 
and dissatisfaction with himself and with his past in life had 
been growing upon him ; but now he was taught that he had a 
work to do and a talent for it; and his sadder moods became 
less frequent. His relation to the public was changed ; atten- 
tion had been attracted to him and there was a desire to hear 
farther from him. It was the first of a series of brilliant ora- 
tions that established his fame and carried him to a seat in the 
TJ. S. Senate. With strict propriety, Sumner, twenty-five years 
later, nearing the close of life and gathering his woAs together, 
in permanent form, placed this oration first in the collection. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 153 

Whatever he had written or said before, he was willing to let 
pass into oblivion, but with this oration he designated that his 
work commenced. 

The same year that marked Sumner's appearance before the 
public in his " True Grandeur of Nations," witnessed the loss 
of his earliest and best friend. Judge Story died on September 
tenth, 1815, at the age of sixty-six, stricken down in the full 
tide of his usefulness. He had been thirty-four years a judge of 
the U. S. Supreme Court and sixteen years a professor in the 
Law School at Harvard. Two days before the commencement 
of his illness, he was in court and pronounced the decision, in a 
complicated case. After his death, another was found among 
his papers, ready for delivery. Eight days after he was stricken, 
he was dead. He was buried in Mount Auburn cemetery at 
Cambridge where were already laid his children who had pre- 
ceded him. He died as became a Christian, with a prayer on 
his lips that his Father would take him to himself. 

This closed a friendship that had lasted from the time of 
Sumner's earliest recollection, through the years of a generation, 
without a jar. Though the disparity of their ages may suggest 
such a relation between them as that of father and son, in 
reality it was a closer relation than this ordinarily is. The 
abounding life and vivacity of the judge, his hearty sympathy 
with the young, in their troubles and triumphs and ambitions, 
and the glamour of his official position, with the respect it in- 
spired, had attracted Sumner very early in life and for many 
years he had seen in Judge Story his ideal of a man. In college ; 
in the law school, as a student and later as an instructor; in 
his private reading and his recreations ; in hi'? thoughts of Eu- 
rope, in securing the means for his trip and in opening the 
doors of society and the avenues for improvement while abroad; 
and still later, in his efforts at the bar and in literature, Sumner 
had always found in Judge Story his faithful mentor and 
friend. Step by step he had followed him with more than a 
father's care. 

But he was destined never to see the good seed he had sown 
ripen into its full harvest. It is a touching thought that, where 
' Sumner's ivorl- commenced, this faithful friend's ended. The 
last letter of importance Judge Story wrote, was the one we have 
quoted ; and the touching words at its close, comes through the 
lapse of years like a parting benediction: "be assured that no 
one cherishes with more fond and affectionate pride the con- 
tinual advancement of your professional and literary fame than 
myself, and no one has a deeper reverence for your character 
and virtues," and then the last word of parting, destined to be 



154 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the last word between them, " affectionately," — summing up in 
that one word the measure he felt for the relation thus closed. 

The second production in Sumner's Works and the one imme- 
diately following the fourth of July oration is a beautiful 
tribute to Judge Story which Sumner wrote for the Boston 
Advertiser, of September sixteenth, 1845, " I have just re- 
turned," it commences, " from the funeral of this great and 
good man. Under that roof where I have so often seen him in 
health, buoyant with life, exuberant in kindness, happy in 
family and friends, I have stood by his mortal remains sunk in 
eternal rest, and gazed upon those well-loved features, from 
which even the icy touch of death had not effaced all the living 
beauty. The eye was quenched and the glow of life extin- 
guished ; but the noble brow seemed still to shelter, as under a 
marble dome, the spirit that had fled. And is he dead, I asked 
myself, — whose face was never turned to me, except in affection, 
— who has filled the civilized world with his name, and drawn to 
his country the homage of foreign nations — and who was of 
activity and labor that knew no rest, — who was connected with 
so many circles by duties of such various kinds, by official ties, 
by sympathy, by friendship and love, — who according to the 
beautiful expression of Wilberforce, ' touched life at so many 
points,' has he, indeed, passed away? " 

In early life Judge Story had a strong taste for a literary 
career but yielding to necessity he entered upon the study of 
law. It is related that when struggling to master the dry pages 
of Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton, the first textbook 
placed in his hands, he gave way in despair; and covering his 
face with his hands at the prospect in life that confronted him 
he shed a copious baptism of tears upon his open book. From 
this unpromising entrance on the law, he rose to be a judge of 
the highest court in the country, the leading professor in Har- 
vard Law School and the author of one of the most widely 
celebrated series of Law-books known to the common law. It 
was upon these three relations of judge, author and teacher 
that Sumner dwelt. 

He recalled with astonishment the extent of his work, the 
written judgments he pronounced upon the Circuit and his 
works as an author, comprising twenty-seven volumes and his 
opinions pronounced in the Supreme Court, filling a large 
measure of thirty-four more, administering the law in all its 
branches, civil and criminal and displaying 'everywhere a mas- 
tery of it. He thought there was much in Judge Story's char- 
acter as a public official that was appreciated by those who saw 
his work, but which could not be preserved, — his courtesy, his 



ii 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 155 

quickness of perception and his promptness in the dispatch of 
business. His mind seemed to grasp at once the controlling 
questions in a case and thus often to anticipate the slower move- 
ments of the attorneys. And when he came to decide he was 
careful to assign reasons for each position he took, so as to make 
it clear that it was not the judge, but the law that disposed 
of it. 

Sumner recalled the fact that as a legal writer, Lord Camp- 
bell had declared in the course of a debate, in the English House 
of Lords, that Judge Story had a greater reputation " than any 
author England could boast since the days of Blackstone," and 
that his works had been reviewed with praise in all of the 
countries of Great Britain, as well as in France and Germany. 
As a teacher he instanced his exquisite faculty of interesting 
the young and winning their affections, that he had often seen 
him surrounded by a group of them, all intent upon his earnest 
conversation and freely interrogating him on matters of in- 
terest ; in the lecture-room he was overflowing with learning 
and unrelaxing in effort, yet patient and gentle. He had grown 
to be a living example of love for the law, which seemed to 
grow warmer with his accumulating years. As evidence of his 
success he mentioned the fact that larger classes of law students 
were gathered to his classes in Harvard than to any other 
similar school in England or America. 

Sumner recalled by way of comparison to him some of the 
great lawyers he had known in Europe, Dupin and Pardessus of 
France ; Thibaut, " with flowing silvery locks, who was so dear 
to Germany " ; and Savigny, " so stately in person and peculiar 
in countenance whom all the continent of Europe delights to 
honor " ; but, he added, " my heart and my judgment, un- 
trammelled, fondly turn with new love and admiration to my 
Cambridge teacher and friend. Jurisprudence has many arrows 
in her quiver, but where is one to compare with that which is 
now spent in the earth ? " 

The influence of Judge Story upon Sumner's character can 
hardly be over-estimated. It was of incalculable benefit, for 
him, ito have daily in example and in intimate association a man 
of Judge Story's pure life and large attainments and wonderful 
industry; with the aid of his advice and direction. Take as 
an instance of this training the beautiful truth he inculcated, 
referred to by Sumner as a reminiscence of his college days, 
that " No man stands in the way of another," that the world 
is so broad and its opportunities so numerous, that no one's suc- 
cess need interfere with any one else's. How much of an an- 
tidote to bickering and jealousy there is in it ! It may not have 



156 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

been altogether to the earnestness with which Judge Story en- 
forced this lesson upon his group of youthful hearers, that 
Sumner owed it, but it is certain that one of the strongest and 
most lovable traits of his character was his loyalty to his friends 
and the earnestness with which he seconded all their efforts for 
advancement, without jealousy and without envy, and with 
never a thought disclosed that he might himself be crowded 
out. This is a single illustration of what this association 
brought to Sumner. What the rest was we can imagine. 



CHAPTER XIV 

JUDGE story's professorship NOT SOUGHT FIRST SPEECH 

AGAINST SLAVERY — AS A LYCEUM LECTURER — ARTICLE ON 

PICKERING PHI BETA KAPPA ORATION — PLACE AS AN 

ORATOR. 

The place, which Sumner had aspired to for many years. 
Judge Story's professorship in the Law School, was now vacant. 
Sumner's desire for it had been more than a passing wish. It 
had been a guiding motive and a stimulant in his studies and 
a cherished ambition of his life to fill this place worthily and 
from it with voice and pen exert a wide influence in teaching 
and systematizing the law. In this ambition he had been en- 
couraged by Judge Story and also by Professor Greenleaf, But 
how we all change ! The long wished for place remained vacant 
a year and yet Sumner did not apply for it. He frankly admit- 
ted that if it were offered him, the chances were that he would 
decline it. For several years he had been growing away from it. 
He had become interested in public affairs and in literature; 
and those things were giving a new direction to his life. He 
now wished for greater independence than he could have in the 
service of conservative Harvard ; he was ambitious for a wider 
fame than was there in prospect. 

On the evening of November 4, 1845, he attended a meeting 
in Faneuil Hall, called to devise means to resist the admis- 
sion of Texas as a slave state. Sumner prepared the reso- 
lutions that were adopted, the first political resolutions he ever 
prepared ; and he supported them by a speech, the first political 
speech he ever delivered. Texas was asking admission to the 
Union with a constitution, prohibiting her Legislature from 
passing any law to emancipate the slaves or to abolish her slave 
trade with other states. The resolutions prepared by Sumner 
condemned the annexation as an extensioh of slavery involving 
the free, as well as the slave states, in the two greatest national 
crimes, Slavery and War. Copies of the resolutions were sent 
to every Senator and Representative in Congress. They called 
upon them to resist the consummation of the movement to the 
utmost at every stage. The President of the meeting, Charles 
Francis Adams, made a speech on taking the chair and he was 
followed by John G. Palfrey, Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Henry 
157 



158 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

B. Stanton, Hillard, William H. Channing and William Lloyd 
Garrison. 

In this, his first public utterance upon the question of slaver}^ 
Sumner's opposition to it is pronounced. He declared that 
the horrors of the " middle passage " when Africans stolen and 
carried by sea far from their homes, pressed on shipboard, into 
spaces of smaller dimensions for each, than a coffin, were be- 
lieved to be of less deadly consequence than those attending the 
wretched coffles driven from the exhausted Northern Slave 
States to the sugar plantations farther South; one quarter 
part were said often to perish in those removals ; and yet it 
was an extension of the coffle system that was proposed in the 
scheme for the admission of Texas. He insisted that this 
should be considered well, the inauguration of a new slave 
trade, secured by constitutional guaranties. He was determined 
that it should not take place with his consent ; but on the con- 
trary should meet his vigorous opposition. If such an extension 
of the slave trade was to take place Massachusetts should wash 
her hands of all participation in the guilt of it. 

He warned her Representatives that they must not yield to 
dalliance with slavery. The seductive influence of the pro- 
slavery atmosphere of Washington, which had for many years 
been diffused by the statesmen of the South, was well known 
in Boston. This was to be resisted and only men who could 
withstand its fatal influence should be sent there. 

The depth of Sumner's feeling upon the question of slavery 
is shown by an incident which occurred about this time. He 
had been invited to lecture before the New Bedford Lyceum and 
had accepted, but before the date fixed for his lecture, he 
learned that colored persons were excluded from the privileges 
of the course. He at once wrote a letter to the committee de- 
clining the appointment. It seemed to him, to found such a 
discrimination on difference of complexion, was contrary to the 
divine injunction, " Do unto others as you would have them do 
unto you." He closed his letter to the committee with these 
words : " In lecturing before a Lyceum which has introduced the 
prejudice of color among its laws, and thus formally reversed 
an injunction of highest morals and politics, I might seem to 
sanction what is most alien to my soul and join in disobedience 
to the command which teaches that the children of earth are all 
of one blood. I cannot do this." Shortly after, the obnoxious 
rule was rescinded, and Sumner then delivered his lecture. 

The lecture lyceum played an important part in Sumner's 
career. It was a means of entertainment quite common in Mas- 
sachusetts. A society would be organized in a community and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 159 

a committee would be thus appointed to secure a course of 
lectures for a winter season. The lecturers were paid, the 
money to defray the expense being raised by charging an ad- 
mission. The fame of Sumner's oration on The True Grandeur 
of Nations, distributed by the friends of peace to the news- 
papers and noticed and portions of it published by many of 
them, had carried his name abroad and created a general desire 
to see and hear him. To the work of preparation for these 
lectures, both in matter and delivery, he brought his usual 
thoroughness, carefully writing and re-writing and amending 
them and practising their delivery, before they were presented 
to the audience. His earnest and easy style of speaking and his 
attractive personal appearance, as well as the freshness of the 
matter and interest of the subjects chosen for his lectures, made 
him a popular lecturer. 

During the four years, from 1846 to 1850, he filled many ap- 
pointments of this kind, speaking in almost every part of the 
State. The lyceums were frequently connected with churches 
and had a membership composed of educated Christian people, 
with a bent for moral and intellectual reforms, but not bound 
together by any political tie. These audiences were peculiarly 
susceptible to such reforms, as the abolition of slavery and war, 
in which he was interested. His lectures gave him a large ac- 
quaintance over the State, with this class of people and was the 
origin of that strong hold which he acquired and retained over 
them as long as he lived. 

His subjects were " The Employment of Time " and " White 
Slavery in the Barbary States " ; the former lecture was deliv- 
ered for the first time before the Boston Lyceum in February, 
1846, and the latter before the Boston Mercantile Library 
Association, a year later; both were delivered many times 
afterward and were never entirely laid aside until his election 
to the Senate. For this event, they aided materially in paving 
the way. 

The former lecture was an earnest effort to teach the young 
the value of time and the importance of a just distribution of 
it between labor, self-improvement and rest. He draws the 
lessons of it largely from the lives of Franklin, Gibbon, Cob- 
bett and Scott, holding them up in succession as examples of 
what can be accomplished by men, in moderate circumstances, 
or even in poverty, by the judicious and industrious husbandry 
of time. 

" Time," he said, " is the measure of life on earth. . . . Its 
divisions, its days, its hours, its minutes, are fractions of this 
heavenly gift. Every moment that flies over our heads takes 



IGO LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

from tlie future and gives to the irrevocable past, shortening by 
so much the measure of our days, abridging by so much the 
means of usefulness committed to our hands. . . , Waste or 
sacrifice of time is, then, waste or sacrifice of life itself; it is 
partial suicide." 

He computed that the loss of one single hour each day for a 
year amounts at its end to thirty-six working days, allowing 
ten hours to the day, — sufficient when applied to the study of a 
new language or an unexplored field of history to make an im- 
portant acquisition in the accumulation of knowledge. He in- 
stanced a French jurist who had composed a learned and im- 
portant work " in the quarter hours that draggled between 
dinner ordered and dinner served ". 

He gave curious examples of the division of their time made 
by numerous men, well-known to fame: Lord Coke, six hours 
for sleep, six to the study of law, four to prayer, the rest to 
Nature; Sir William Jones, six to law, seven to slumber, ten to 
the world and all to Heaven. He instanced Napoleon and 
Alexander Von Humboldt as only allowing four hours, out of 
the twenty-four, to sleep; while Judge Story, given as a high 
example of what may be wrought by wakeful diligence, who 
had accomplished more than any one within the circle of his 
individual observation, retired always at ten o'clock, to rise at 
seven, allowing nine hours for sleep. It would have been in- 
teresting for us to have had Sumner's judgment upon the whole 
matter, but this he discreetly withheld, contenting himself by 
saying that different constitutions require different amounts of 
sleep, even the same individual in youth and old age requiring 
more than when in middle life. 

An occasional passage of this lecture gives us an insight into 
Sumner's own habits and opinions. In speaking of the time 
when literary men have done their best work he says it may 
be doubted if the student can be weaned from those habits 
which lead him to continue his work far into the night, so that 
from time immemorial he has been said to " consume the mid- 
night oil " and his productions marked by peculiar care to 
" smell of the lamp." And he adds : " They who confess them- 
selves among the slaves of the lamp say that there is an ex- 
citement in study, increasing as the work proceeds, which 
flames forth with new brightness at the close of the day and in 
the stillness of those hours when the world is wrapped in sleep 
and the student is the sole watcher." Sumner's habit of work- 
ing late in the night had already been formed and it continued 
with him through life. 

In another passage he warns his hearers against the tendency 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 161 

to absorption in one pursuit. The mere man of business, he 
insists, is " a man of one idea ", which has its root in no gener- 
ous or humane desires, but in selfishness. He lives for himself 
alone, and though he may send his freight to the farthest quar- 
ters of earth, his real horizon is restricted to the narrow circle 
of his own personal interests. He would not, he added, weaken 
the just attachment to the business of one's choice, but he re- 
called the advice of Goethe to every one, to read daily a short 
poem and, in this spirit, he would refine and elevate business 
by enlarging the intelligence, widening the observation and 
awakening new sympathies. He points his argument with the 
examples of Ben Jonson, working as a bricklayer, with a trowel 
in his hand and a book in his pocket, of Burns, " wooing his 
muse as he followed his plough on the mountain-side " and of 
Franklin beginning those studies which made him immortal 
while a toiling printer's boy, straitened by small means. 

Summer's lecture upon White Slavery in the Barbaiy States 
was first delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Asso- 
ciation on February 17, 1847, and was afterwards given before 
many other lyceums of the State. It was a carefully prepared 
monogram on the origin, history and character of slavery as it 
existed in the States of Northern Africa. In the sensitive state 
of the public mind upon the question of slavery in the United 
States, it would have been suicidal for a lyceum lecturer to at- 
tempt to discuss this subject before an audience. He would 
have encountered the prejudice of a large class of his patrons. 
Sumner sought to evade this and yet teach an instructive lesson 
upon a subject in which he had become interested, by laying the 
scene of his lecture in Africa instead of America. He was 
better enabled to bring the enormities of slavery home to his 
audience by this example, because the people of the Barbary 
States were black, while their slaves were white people who had 
been the unhappy victims of piratical excursions. The prey of 
Barbary seamen was often vessels upon voyages to and from 
America; and our own countrymen were thus frequently en- 
slaved. 

The United States government repeatedly paid large sums 
for the ransom of its citizens. But the pirates continued to in- 
crease and finally became so much of an annoyance to our 
commerce that war was declared and in a short naval campaign, 
distinguished by the victories of Decatur and Bainbridge, a 
treaty was extorted from the Dey of Algiers, stipulating that 
henceforth no Americans should be made slaves. But the 
distinction of abolishing slavery there, was reserved for an 
English Admiral, Lord Exmouth. 



162 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

In 1846, John Pickering, one of Sumner's friends, died. His 
father was the Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President 
Washington at the time of the son's graduation from Harvard, 
in 1796. The next year the son, through his father's influence 
was made Secretary of Legation to Portugal, where he remained 
two years, and then for two more he was private secretary to 
Mr, King, our Minister to England, with his residence in 
London. Upon his return to Massachusetts he read law with 
Hon. Samuel Putnam, at Salem, afterwards a judge of the 
Supreme Court of the State, who was also the legal preceptor 
of Judge Story. Pickering was three times a Representative 
and as often a Senator in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and 
was for sixteen years the City Solicitor of Boston, besides filling 
the vacancy, on the commission to revise the statutes, caused 
by the death of Professor Putnam. He was a frequent con- 
tributor to the American Jurist and the Law Reporter. 

But this was only one side of the life of this laborious man. 
Along with his legal pursuits, by a careful husbandry of his 
time, he pursued the study of philology and became the master 
of nine different languages, five of which he spoke. He studied 
the Indian languages of North America and devised an alpha- 
bet for them. But his best known work was his Greek-English 
Lexicon, still the standard in use in American colleges. He 
was elected Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages 
and later to the chair of Greek Literature in Harvard. But he 
declined both. His name was twice proposed in the public 
prints for President of the University. But he continued to 
the last, a modest, hard-working lawyer. 

Although he was many years Sumner's senior, kindred tastes 
as well as the common experiences of foreign travel had made 
them friends. Upon Pickering's death, Sumner commemorated 
him in a carefully prepared article, published in the Law 
Reporter of June, 1846. It is one of the best sketches of 
its kind he ever produced. He enforced again by the example 
of Pickering, the two thoughts he had kept uppermost in his 
lecture on the Employment of Time, the importance of the 
careful husbandry of the passing moments of life and the neces- 
sity of avoiding the absolute absorption of one's self in the 
single business of his choice. Sumner showed that Pickering 
was a painstaking, laborious attorney, absorbed in the business 
of his office, during the working hours of the day, and arose to a 
high rank at the bar; but he emphasized how much he was 
able to accomplish for humanity and his own fame by the oc- 
cupation of his hours of leisure in useful studies. 

Sumner commemorated Pickering on another occasion. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 163 

When he was invited to deliver the address on the anniversary 
of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University in 
August, 1846, he made it the occasion of his oration on The 
Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, and the Philanthropist, com- 
memorating under these heads his former friends, Pickering, 
Story, Washington Allston and William Ellery Channing. 
They had all been members of the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity 
and graduates of Harvard, It was customary to issue a cata- 
logue of the Fraternity every four years, marking with a star 
the names of those members who had died. These names were 
all so starred in the catalogue of the year. 

The audience before which the oration was delivered was a 
brilliant one. The First Church of Cambridge was filled with 
the culture and beauty of the old university town and its 
friends. Edward Everett, the graceful and impressive orator, 
then just returned from his mission to the Court of St. James, 
was present to assume his duties as President of Harvard, and 
the retiring President, Josiah Quincy, was there, now laying 
aside the robes of office, after years of distinguished service in 
the National House of Eepresentatives, in the Mayoralty of 
Boston and at the head of his Ahna Mater. The venerable John 
Quincy Adams was there to grace by his presence, for the last 
time, this anniversary of his college fraternity, and William 
Kent, the newly elected successor to Judge Story in the Law 
School, the Governor of Virginia, Congressmen, poets and his- 
torians. And those nearer to Sumner were there, Longfellow, 
Prescott, Howe and his accomplished wife, who, " for the first 
quarter of an hour did not dare to look at him, dreading mistake 
or failure and who was then completely surprised and carried 
away, who had no idea he could do anything like it." Perhaps 
a sight of her and a touch of his old admiration reached Sumner. 
There too was his mother and sister to witness his triumph. 

He was dressed with his usual care. He had been too much 
under the influence of Daniel Webster not to appreciate the 
value of this. And his handsome figure never appeared to 
better advantage. He spoke for two hours, easily and forcibly, 
without the aid of notes or manuscript, apparently all thought 
of himself lost in his interest in his theme. Once he turned 
to address the President of the University and seemed to forget 
his audience and for some minutes with his back to them con- 
tinued speaking to him alone. But his delivery was so effective 
that fifty years afterwards persons still living could recall 
distinctly certain passages and the peculiar emphasis he gave 
them, it is considered by some his greatest oratorical triumph. 
The production excels any of his others in style and finish, and 



164 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the subject being of permanent interest it will probably con- 
tinue to be one of the most popular of his orations. In the 
edition of his works he prefaced it with this sentiment from 
Schiller ; " Give the world beneath your influence a direction 
towards the good, and the tranquil rhythm of time will bring 
its development." 

As the title of his oration was The Scholar, the Jurist, the 
Artist, the Philanthropist, so his theme was Knowledge, Jus- 
tice, Beauty, Love, "the comprehensive attributes of God," as 
he declared ; and he used the lives of his four friends as threads 
on which to string a discussion of these subjects. His aim was 
not so much to commemorate the men as to advance the objects 
they had so successfully served. Speaking of Pickering, he 
paid this tribute to the uses and the graces of scholarship: 

" He knew that scholarship of all kinds would gild the life 
of its possessor, enlarge the resources of the bar, enrich the voice 
of the pulpit, and strengthen the learning of medicine. He 
knew that it would afford a soothing companionship in hours of 
relaxation from labor, in periods of sadness, and in the evening 
of life ; that when once embraced, it was more constant than 
friendship, — attending its votary, as an invisible spirit, in the 
toils of the day, the watches of the night, the changes of travel 
and the alternations of fortune or health." 

In speaking of Story's love for literature and the fact that he 
would frequently turn aside from the sterner studies of the law 
to cultivate the love of poetry and polite letters, he likened 
him, in this, to Seldon, Somers, Mansfield and Blackstone in 
England, and L'Hopital and D'Aguesseau in France, and he 
ventured the assertion that it would not be easy to mention a 
single person winning the highest place in the profession of 
the law, who was not a scholar also. 

In this address he fixed for us his definition of the term, 
Jurist. It is interesting to us because we know that during 
many of the years of his early manhood it was Sumner's am- 
bition to be one. He described him as a " student and ex- 
pounder of jurisprudence as a science, — not merely lawyer or 
judge, pursuing it as an art " — who examines every principle 
in the light of science, and, while doing justice, seeks to widen 
and confirm the means of justice hereafter by reducing his pro- 
fession to an exact science, — such men as Grotius, Pothier, 
Coke and Kent, expounders of the law and therefore higher 
than lawyers and not to be confounded with such men as Dun- 
ning, and Pinkney, mere practitioners, though tlie one be 
the acknowledged leader of Westminster Hall and the other of 
the American Bar. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 165 

In his treatment of the part of his subject devoted to Wash- 
ington Allston, the artist, Sumner's love of the beautiful in 
life and in art becomes easily apparent. It is not often in a 
young man that this trait comes out in such marked degree. 
And it shows how unerringly Sumner's attention had already 
been fixed on the pure and the good and how earnestly he looked 
forward to the enlargement of their influence. 

" Allston," he said, " was a good man, with a soul refined by 
purity, exalted by religion, softened by love. In manner he was 
simple, yet courtly, — quiet, though anxious to please, — kindly 
to all alike, the poor and the lowly not less than the rich and 
great. As he spoke in that voice of gentlest utterance, all were 
charmed to listen; and the airy-footed hours often tripped on 
far toward the gates of morning, before his friends could break 
from his spell. His character is transfigured in his works . . . 
Allston was a Christian artist; and the beauty of expression 
lends uncommon charm to his colors. All that he did shows 
purity, sensibility, refinement, delicacy, feeling rather than 
force. His genius was almost feminine. As he advanced in 
years, this was more remarked. His pictures became more and 
more instinct with those sentiments which forai the true glory 
of Art. ... He looked down on the common strife for 
worldly consideration. With impressive beauty of truth and ex- 
pression he said. Fame is the eternal shadow of excellence, 
from which it can never be separated.' Here is a volume, 
prompting to noble thoughts and action, not for the sake of 
glory, but for advance in knowledge, virtue, excellence." 

It was, however, in Channing that Sumner found the master 
spirit that had exerted most influence in shaping his own 
thoughts of reform. We have already seen in his oration on 
The True Grandeur of Nations how firmly he had set his face 
against war and slavery. This was largely an inheritance from 
Channing, who though a minister, serving a Boston congrega- 
tion, had given much time to these subjects and seems to have 
had a peculiar attraction for young men. In the mention of 
him, which Sumner reserved to the last in his oration, although 
his death had been the first of the four, an opportunity was 
presented for a renewed discussion of the inhumanity of war 
and slavery. Sumner did not let it go unheeded. 

In recalling with what earnestness Channing had discussed 
them and with what success, Sumner was led to speak of the 
style of his oratory. What he said has already been quoted in 
these pages as showing the models upon which he formed his 
own ideal of an orator. 

In the contemplation of such exemplars well might Sumner 



IQQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ' 

exclaim in closing his oration : " In their presence, how truly do 
we feel the insignificance of office and wealth, which men so 
hotly pursue ! What is office ? and what is wealth ? Expres- 
sions and representatives of what is present and fleeting only, 
investing the possessor with a brief and local regard. Let this 
not be exaggerated ; it must not be confounded with the serene 
fame which is the reflection of generous labors in great causes. 
The street lights within the circle of their nightly glimmer, 
seem to outshine the distant stars, observed of men in all lands 
and times, but gas-lamps are not to be mistaken for celestial 
luminaries. They who live for wealth, and the things of this 
world, follow shadows, neglecting realities eternal on earth and 
in heaven. After the perturbations of life, all its accumulated 
possessions must be resigned, except those only which have been 
devoted to God and mankind. What we do for ourselves 
perishes with this mortal dust; what we do for others lives 
coeval with the benefaction. W^orms may destroy the body, but 
they cannot consume such a fame." 

The success of the oration was instantaneous. At the dinner 
of the Society held after the exercises in the church, John 
Quincy Adams offered the toast : " The memory of the Scholar, 
the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist ; and not the memory, 
the long life of the kindred spirit who has this day embalmed 
them all." And in a letter dated two days later, after con- 
gratulating Sumner on his oration, he wrote : " Casting my 
eyes backward no farther than the 4th of July of last year, 
when you set all the vipers of Alecto a-hissing by proclaiming 
the Christian law of universal peace and love, and then casting 
them forward, perhaps not much farther, but beyond my own 
allotted time, I see you have a mission to perform. I look from 
Pisgah to the Promised Land ; you must enter upon it." The 
old anti-slavery warrior doubtless realized that in Sumner the 
cause had found a new champion, but he could hardly have 
realized the weight of the blows this new champion was destined 
to deal his ancient enemy on the floor of Congress. 

Edward Everett wrote Sumner : " Should you never do any- 
thing else, you have done enough for fame ; but you are, as far 
as these public efforts are concerned, at the commencement of 
a career destined, I trust, to last for long years, of ever in- 
creasing usefulness and honor." Chancellor Kent, to whom one 
of the pamphlet copies of the oration was sent, pronounced it 
one of the most splendid productions, in point of diction and 
eloquence, he had ever read. This was high praise, from high 
authority. It was appreciated by Sumner. He valued the 
friendship of these men. His transparent nature made him 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER iQ>^ 

ever ready to accord just praise to others and to value theirs of 
himself as a frank acknowledgment of his merit. 

Sumner's place in Boston as a public orator was now estab- 
lished. His work as a lyceum lecturer had satisfied his au- 
diences. His oration on The True Grandeur of Nations had 
awakened an unusual interest in him and attracted general 
public attention, but there was still a doubt whether it was not 
a fortunate effort upon a favorite subject that furnished no just 
estimate of the man. Even taken at its best, this oration lacked 
the smoothness and finish of the " The Scholar, the Jurist, the 
Artist, and the Philanthropist/' The standard, at Cambridge, 
where the influence of the college was felt, was high and the 
audiences critical in their estimates of new men, but Sumner 
had fairly satisfied them. However much in the future they 
doubted the soundness of his views on slavery and the rights 
of the colored race they did not afterwards question his ability 
as an orator. He now took his position among them as an ac- 
ceptable speaker, much sought for on public occasions and a 
child of their own, in whom they felt a just pride. 

This distinction he laboriously earned. At this time of his 
life he wrote out his orations in full before delivery and after 
carefully criticising them himself and receiving suggestions 
from friends, he memorized them. He was careful of details 
in delivery that would contribute to the effect of an address. 
In the absence of Longfellow and his wife, from Cambridge, 
we find him taking advantage of the retirement of their housed 
to memorize and practise the delivery of some of them. He' 
could there speak aloud without being* heard. He followed this 
manner of preparing an address for many years,— even after he 
became a Senator and after his fame was established in Wash- 
ington, 

He was equally careful in the revision of his orations for 
publication. Felton made a playful reference to it, when 
Sumner was revising his True Grandeur of Nations for the 
press. Owing to the convenience of Felton's house to the Har- 
vard College library, where he wished to obtain works of refer- 
ence, Sumner used a room there as a convenient place to work. 
Felton wrote to Longfellow: "You have no idea, what an 
arsenal of peace my house has become ; Lives of William Penn, 
sermons on war, tracts of the American Peace Society, journals' 
anti-everything. Scriptural arguments, estimates of the cost of 
navies and armies, besides a great many smaller arms, the pis- 
tols, hand grenades, cutlasses and so forth of the Peace Es- 
tablishment, are arranged in every part of the house, upstairs, 
downstairs, in the attics and in the cellars." 



168 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Sumner^s diligence in revision did not always impress people 
so good-naturedly as it had Felton. In publishing the edition 
of his orations and addresses in 1850, he made so many changes, 
even upon the third proof, that his printers remonstrated vigor- 
ously and told him they could not bear the extra expense and 
that he must thereafter finish his revision before handing his 
manuscript to the printer. But the reproof did not cure the 
habit. For in the final revision of his works, which he was 
making at the time of his death, he was as exacting as ever and 
still making numerous changes. A comparison of almost any 
oration in this with the same one in the earlier editions will 
illustrate my meaning. The changes, I think, in some instances 
did not add to the value of the works. They sometimes de- 
tracted from their freshness and made them appear unnatural 
and labored to those at least who had known them in their 
earlier form. But the great idealist was still to the last reach- 
ing out after excellence that he felt as constantly eluding his 
grasp. 



CHAPTER XV 

ORIGIN OF Sumner's interest in the cause of universal 

PEACE — interested IN THE SUBJECT OF PRISON DISCI- 
PLINE — THE BOSTON PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY EQUAL 

RIGHTS OF COLORED CHILDREN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS — 
DIVERSIONS 

In 1848, a friend suggested to Sumner that his interest in 
his favorite reforms had been imputed by some to a desire for 
public notice. Sumner felt hurt at this imputation. He 
replied at some length explaining the real origin of his interest. 
The explanation is interesting as a matter of personal history. 

His attention had been attracted to the question of universal 
peace by an oration of President Quincy delivered in old South 
Church, Boston, when he was scarcely nine years of age. It 
was at a meeting of the American Peace Society. The lecture 
made a deep impression upon the youthful mind of Sumner by 
showing the appalling waste of life and property war involved. 
While in the reading of after years he was attracted by the 
glamour of military glory, the good seed sowed by this lecture 
seemed never to have been choked out. Shortly after he left 
college, this early impression was deepened by a lecture of 
William Ladd, in tlie old Cambridge Court House. As this con- 
viction grew upon Sumner and the notes of years of reading 
accumulated in support of it, he did not hesitate to express in 
conversation his abhorrence of war. As an illustration, while in 
Paris, he was asked by M. Victor Foucher, to read a part of the 
manuscript of his treatise upon the law of nations. Upon 
returning it with his criticisms, Sumner called his attention to 
the portion of his work that placed war among the recognized 
arbitraments for the determination of questions between 
nations. While admitting the truth of this position, Sumner 
urged him to combat it as barbarous and unchristian. 

Within a month after his return from Europe, Sumner was 
attracted by a notice in a newspaper of a meeting of the Amer- 
ican Peace Society and attended. It was held in a small room 
under Marlboro Chapel, with scarcely a dozen persons present. 
Sumner was placed upon its Executive Committee and there- 
after became one of its active members. But his part for peace 
consisted in attendance upon its meetings and work upon its 
169 



170 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

committees, until 1845, when being pressed to deliver the Muni- 
cipal Oration, he unburdened his mind of the accumulation of 
years of study and thought upon this subject. 

It could hardly be expected that he would escape criticism 
altogether, after this bold assault upon such a time-honored 
institution as war, with its well paid armies of apologists. He 
was frequently called upon to defend his positions. But he 
did it as fearlessly as he had announced them. His public 
orations that followed, as the one on " The Scholar, the Jurist, 
the Artist, and the Philanthropist," and another, on " Fame 
and Glory," showed that his conclusions were not hastily 
formed and that he would take no step backward. They both 
reiterated the conclusions expressed in his Municipal Oration. 
In 1849, he was invited to address the American Peace Society 
at its annual meeting and he delivered an elaborate oration. 
His purpose was to show that as all human trials of right, be- 
tween individuals, by mere physical prowess, had been abolished 
so war ought also to be abolished, in the settlement of disputes 
between nations. The address was replete with learning and 
abounded in historical quotations to sustain his position ; but 
it lacked the eloquence and the exuberant diction of the others. 

In the fall of 1849, Sumner was appointed chairman of a 
committee to secure a proper representation of the United 
States at a Peace Congress to be held in 1850 at Frankfort-on- 
the-lMain. He prepared the address of the committee to the 
people of the United States, urging upon them systematic 
work in the appointment of delegates and in securing some con- 
gressional action upon the subject. The address was also 
signed by the secretaries Elihu Burritt and Amasa Walker, 
Sumner was chosen a delegate to the Congress but felt con- 
strained by lack of means to decline the place. Public interest 
in the subject was, however, beginning to wane. In the United 
States it was soon completely overshadowed by the slavery 
question and in Europe there was a reaction against it. 

With this address, Sumner's public work in the cause of 
universal peace may be said to have ended. His election to the 
Senate and absorption in the slavery question, with the other 
duties of his office withdrew him entirely from this work. But 
his convictions remained unchanged and he never hesitated to 
express them upon proper occasions. One of the provisions of 
his will set apart a fund for an annual prize to be given the 
student of Harvard College for the best dissertation on uni- 
versal peace and the methods by which war may be permanently 
superseded. And he added in his will, after this provision, these 
words: "I do this in the hope of drawing the attention of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 171 

students to the practicability of organizing peace among na- 
tions, which I sincerely believe may be done. I cannot doubt 
that the same modes of decision, which now prevail between 
individuals, between towns and between smaller communities 
may be extended to nations." 

But it seems strange that any one would consider the cause 
of universal peace at the time Sumner was engaged in it a fruit- 
ful field for gathering fame. The little meeting under Marlboro 
Chapel of a few enthusiastic friends of humanity almost 
objects of merriment to a more numerous, though perhaps a 
less thoughtful public, was hardly a company into which an 
ambitious young man, bent on fame, would find his way. The 
whole story of Sumner's connection with the peace question 
shows how utterly without foundation such an imputation was. 
Those who knew Sumner, his sincerity and disinterestedness, 
with his crowning wish to be useful, in permanently improving 
the condition of his fellow-men, knew how unjust it was. 

Sumner scouted the thought that it was done for any purpose 
of popularity. " I have little sympathy with office-seekers, — 
I might add with self-seekers, in any way," he wrote. " My 
own fixed purpose has always been to lead a life without office. 
This has been a cherished idea. I would teach, if I might so 
aspire, by example, that a useful and respectable career may be 
spent without dependence upon popular favor and without the 
possession of what you have called ' power.' " And then, as if 
reminded that it was his own motives, that were assailed, he 
continued : " In the expression of my opinions I have hoped 
to show a proper regard for those from whom I differ. Well 
aware thart where freedom of tliought exists, difference must 
ensue, I have always desired that these should be tempered 
by mutual kindness and forbearance so that we might all at 
least ' agree to disagree.' In this spirit while leaving others to 
determine their course towards me, I have endeavored, on my 
part to allow no debates of opinion to interfere with any 
pleasant personal relations ; and though sometimes condemning 
or criticising the public conduct of men, I trust that I have 
never failed to do homage to their unquestioned virtues." 

Sumner's interest in the subject of prison discipline, a sub- 
ject considerably more discussed then than now, was not alto- 
gether of his choosing. His friend Howe had urged it upon 
him. Howe had made a study of the subject, which was being 
agitated by Prison Discipline Societies in nearly all the large 
cities of the United States and Europe, and he was a convert 
to what is known as the Pennsylvania system, which enforced 
the entire separation of the prisoners from one another, as 



172 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

contradistinguished from the Auburn system which required 
them to labor together during the day, only separating them 
at night. The Boston Prison Discipline Society was holding its 
annual meeting, during the last week of May. Its President 
was Dr. Francis Wayland, its Secretary Rev. Louis Dwight and 
its Treasurer, Samuel A. Eliot. Dr. Wayland was an excellent 
man, but being absorbed in his duties as President of Brown 
University, gave little attention to the society. Mr. Eliot was 
a merchant, the Treasurer of Harvard College, but knew little 
of the subject of prison discipline, had no training as a public 
speaker, and little taste for controversy. But he was thor- 
oughly loyal to Dwight, the only paid officer of the society, a 
man of limited ability and rather slow of comprehension, nar- 
row and opinionated, who had been educated for the ministry, 
but devoted his time to this work, kept the office, solicited con- 
tributions to it and prepared its annual reports. In fact 
Dwight was the Society. He was a firm believer in the Auburn 
system. In his annual reports, he had pretty uniformly aired 
his views, treating the Pennsylvania system and its separation 
of the prisoners, in the main, rather unfairly. 

Howe had noticed this and called Sumner's attention to it. 
By an arrangement he and Sumner attended the annual meet- 
ing of the society held in 1845 in Park Street Church and de- 
termined that, if the Secretary pursued his usual course, they 
would publicly remonstrate. The customary report of the 
Secretary was read, with its customary strictures on the Penn- 
sylvania system, and according to previous arrangement, the 
motion had been made to adopt it, when Sumner, seated two 
or three pews to the left of the platform mounted the rail of 
his pew, passed quickly over the backs of the intervening ones 
till he stood in front of the President, with a bundle of papers 
in his hand. Hardly addressing the President, who did not 
seem to know who he was, Sumner proceeded without ceremony 
to tear the views of the Secretary to pieces. For full half an 
hour, to the annoyance of the Secretary and the surprise of the 
audience at this unexpected breach in the customary routine 
of the programme, Sumner poured forth an accumulation of 
facts and figures to disprove the Secretary's position, and show 
his want of fairness. The Secretary, in his dull, inconclusive 
way, undertook to reply, but the audience was with Sumner and 
compelled a reference of the report to a committee to revise and 
modify it, with power to visit Philadelphia, in the name of the 
Society and ascertain on the spot the true character of the sys- 
tem Dwight had condemned. 

Howe, Sumner, Eliot, Horace Mann, Walter Channing, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I73 

Dwight, George T. Bigelow and J. W. Edmonds were appointed 
as the committee. Howe, Sumner, Eliot and Dwight visited 
Philadelphia and examined the prison on three successive days. 
Dwight was sullen and silent, taking little interest in what he 
saw, while Sumner was alert, prying into everything, bent on 
knowing about the prison and its workings and the results. 
He plied the directors with questions and finally took Dwight 
to task before them for having misrepresented some of the 
facts. Howe prepared the report of the committee and he and 
Sumner sought to have it embodied in the report of the Society 
for the following year; but Dwight was strong enough to pre- 
vent this. 

The following January, Sumner published an article in the 
Christian Examiner, setting forth the merits of the separate 
system. Boston was about to build a new jail and he was anx- 
ious that she should show the same superiority in her prisons 
that she did in her schools and colleges. And he was especially 
anxious to correct the erroneous impressions, about the Penn- 
sylvania system, created by Dwight's reports. Another anni- 
versary of the Prison Discipline Society was approaching and 
he and Howe were determined to down Dwight. The article 
opens with a tribute to Miss Dix, who was devoting her life 
unselfishly to the visitation of the charitable and penal insti- 
tutions of the Northern and Middle States, and it did not close 
without a notice of Dwight who, he insisted, had never failed to 
present all the evils of the separate system, particularly as ad- 
ministered in Philadelphia, sometimes even drawing on his 
imagination for facts, while he carefully withheld the testimony 
in its favor. 

At the anniversary of the Society in May, 1846, Sumner, dis- 
appointed at not getting a hearing through a report, again 
presented the subject to the meeting and supported it at 
length, with a vigorous speech, closing with a motion for the 
appointment of a committee to examine the reports and the 
course of the Society and see if something could not be done 
to extend its usefulness. Sumner was appointed on the com- 
mittee which was to make its report at the next anniversary 
of the Society. Meantime the controversy was attracting pub- 
lic attention. Sumner's speech was printed in the papers and 
commented on. It was reprinted in Liverpool, in a pamphlet ; 
and from England, France and Germany came letters attesting 
interest in the controversy. De Tocqueville, the author of 
Democracy in America, who had been interested in the subject 
and for that reason had visited many of our prisons using both 
systems, wrote Sumner that he was " surprised and pained " at 



174 ^^FE OF CHARLES SUMtJEB 

the course of the Society. At home it called forth an able pam- 
phlet on the subject by Francis C. Gray. 

Meantime the anniversary of 1847 came. Sumner for him- 
self and Hillard and Dr. Wayland presented a report of the 
committee. It closed with a scries of resolutions which de- 
clared that the Society was not the pledged advocate of any 
system and that its reports should impartially set forth the 
merits of all, deprecating anything in the former reports that 
may have pained the directors of the Eastern Pennsylvania 
Penitentiary and asking the management of the Society to 
organize a new system that should enlist the co-operation of its 
individual members. The adoption of the resolutions was op- 
posed and the consideration of them was adjourned from May 
25th to the evening of May 28th, when Sumner made a speech 
supporting them. The discussion thus opened was followed up 
by adjournments to June second, fourth, ninth, eleventh, 
sixteenth, eighteenth and twenty-third. Attracted by the 
contest, the meetings held in Tremont Temple, were largely 
attended, sometimes as many as two thousand people being 
present, and the audiences partook largely of the feeling of 
the speakers. They were supported, besides Sumner, by Howe, 
Hillard, Rev. Francis Parkman and Henry H. Fuller, they 
were opposed by Eliot, Dwight, Gray, Bradford Sumner, Rev. 
George Allen, Dr. Walter Channing and J. F. Stephenson. 
On the evening of June 18th Sumner spoke again. It was the 
intention that, as Chairman of the committee reporting the reso- 
lutions, he should, with this speech, review and close the debate. 
But it had acquired too great momentum to be so suddenly and 
so decorously stopped. This speech shows something of the 
accrimony of the debate. 

Commencing, Sumner said : " Mr. President, I approach this 
discussion with regret, feeling that I must say something which 
I would gladly leave unsaid. I shall not, however, decline the 
duty which is cast upon me. In its performance I hope to be 
pardoned, if I speak frankly and freely; I trust it will be 
gently and kindly. I will borrow from the honorable Treas- 
urer, with his permission, something of his frankness, with- 
out his temper. As I propose to adduce facts, I shall be grate- 
ful to any gentleman who will correct me where I seem to be 
wrong. For such a purpose I will cheerfully yield the floor, 
even to the Treasurer, though his sense of justice did not suffer 
him, while on the floor, to give me an opportunity of correcting 
a misstatement he made of what I said on a former occasion." 

Referring to the fact that Nathaniel Willis, a near relative 
of the Secretary, had nioved a resolution that it was not e:^- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ^75 

pedient to discuss this subject at the anniversary meeting, he 
said : " It was at the anniversary meeting, however, that I was 
determined to discuss the subject, being assured that in the 
presence of a wakeful public, the will of one or two individuals 
could not control the course of the Society. Accordingly I took 
the floor and proceeded to speak, when I was strangely encoun- 
tered by the Secretary, who ejaculated : ' Mr. President, the an- 
nual meeting was interrupted in this manner last year ; there are 
gentlemen present who are invited by the committee of arrange- 
ments to address us.' On this remarkable fragment of a speech 
I made no comment at the time. I shall make none now, but 
I cannot forbear quoting the words of the able editor of the 
Law Reporter with regard to it. ^ It would seem,' he says, ' that 
the addresses at the public meetings of this Society are all cut 
and dried beforehand, made to order, — a fact that might as 
well have been kept back, under the circumstances, for the credit 
of all concerned.' Notwithstanding this interference, I pro- 
ceeded to expose the prejudiced and partisan course of the 
Society and its consequent loss of credit, concluding with a 
motion for a committee to consider its past conduct and the 
best means of extending its usefulness. The motion though 
opposed at the time, was adopted. It is the report of that com- 
mittee which is now before you." 

" This report, when offered to the Society, was first opposed 
on grounds of form. It is now opposed on other grounds, 
hardly more pertinent, though not of form only. Thus at 
every step have honest efforts to elevate the character of the 
Society, and to extend its usefulness, been encountered by op- 
position. Under the auspices of the Treasurer and Secretary, 
the Society shrinks from examination and inquiry. Like the 
sensitive leaf, it closes at the touch. Nay, more, it repels all 
endeavor to wake it to new life. It seems to have adopted, as 
its guardian motto, that remarkable epitaph which for more 
than two centuries has preserved from examination and intru- 
sion the sacred remains of the greatest master of our tongue : — 

" ' Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
To dig the dust enclosed here! 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones ! ' " 

In urging the adoption of a resolution, asking that a new 
system should be adopted by the management of the Society so 
as to enlist the co-operation of the individual members, Sumner 
showed his entire want of appreciation of this management of 
the Society. " Look at our grandiose organization," he said. 



176 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

" We have a President with forty Vice-Presidents, — or borrow- 
ing an illustration from Turkey, ' a pacha with forty tails.' 
Then we have a large body of foreign correspondents, whose 
names we print in capitals, — ' fancy men ' as they have been 
called, because they are for show, I suppose, like our Vice 
Presidents. Then there are scores of Directors, and a Board 
of Managers. Now I know full well, that of these very few 
interest themselves so much in our Society as to attend its 
sessions. At the meeting last year for the choice of officers 
there were ten present. We ten chose the whole array of 
Vice-Presidents and all. And then, too, the Secretary politely 
furnished us printed tickets bearing their names and his own. 
Certainly, sir, something should be done to mend this matter. 
We must cease to have so many officers, or they must partici- 
pate actively in the duties of the Society." 

" Look at our annual income. Notwithstanding the special 
pleading of the Treasurer, I must insist that this is upwards of 
$3,000." 

"But what does it accomplish? On looking at its journal 
for the last three years, it appears that the chief business of the 
Managers, who have met some three or four times in the year, 
only has been to vote a salary of seventeen hundred dollars to 
the Secretary, with fuel and rent for his office sometimes and 
also to vote a vacation for four months in the country during 
our pleasant summers." 

So the debate ran on. It was about midnight of June 23rd 
when it closed. Dwight was crushed ; but Eliot was as pompous 
as ever. The audience, more interested in witnessing the con- 
test than in the vote, were beginning to leave, when an unex- 
pected motion to lay the question on the table prevailed ; and 
so the whole matter went over for that year. But the society 
was discredited. It never held another public meeting. It con- 
tinued in existence for a few years longer, supported mainly by 
Dwight's friends, to furnish him a livelihood and when he died, 
it died with him. The officers recommended its dissolution for 
the reason that no suitable successor to Dwight could be found. 

Amusing as much of this controversy seems, it is important 
as showing the earliest development of a strong point in Sum- 
ner's character. For the first time, he then showed his ability 
to maintain himself in a sustained and heated controversy. 
Save his studied addresses he had been enured thus far only to 
books and friends, and an occasional decorous contest of the 
court-room. But now for the first time was seen his ability to 
give as well as take blows, in the free discussions of a delibera- 
tive body. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 177 

Another good work that Sumner sought to promote about 
this time, more nearly allied to his efforts against slavery, was 
his effort to prevent colored children being longer excluded 
from the white schools in Boston. With Eobert Morris, a col- 
ored attorney, he brought suit for Sarah C. Roberts, a colored 
child, against the city, for damages for refusing her the privil- 
eges of the white schools. The contest had been going on for 
some years, in the School Committee, before it found its way 
into the courts. Attorneys had submitted opinions upon the 
question to the Committee, the newspapers had discussed it, 
but the Committee was still divided. 

It was urged that, as there were not so many colored as white 
children, to require their separation was to compel the colored 
to travel long distances, and often suffer other inconveniences, 
to reach a school. In this case a little girl only five years old, 
was compelled, if she attended a colored school, to travel 2,100 
feet and pass on the way five white schools; while the nearest 
white school was only 900 feet from her door. This was a 
hardship that was not to be disregarded by the parents of a 
child, so tender in years, during the severe winters of Boston. 
Another instance was given of a respectable colored man of East 
Boston, separated from the mainland by water and having no 
colored schools, where he lived, who was compelled to pay the 
ferry tolls for his three children, a severe tax upon the small 
means of a poor man, and then see his children travel a long 
distance in all kinds of weather, likewise a severe tax upon their 
strength. And all this was done that children in a country 
where schools were free, might enjoy the privileges of an edu- 
cation. Besides, it was urged that the separation degraded the 
colored children and placed them under the ban of a caste, that 
was alike unjust to them and contrary to the spirit of our in- 
stitutions. 

Sumner in opening his argument, before the Supreme Court 
of Massachusetts, said " It would be difficult to image any case 
appealing more strongly to the best judgment of the court, 
whether you regarded the parties or the subject. On the one 
side was the city of Boston, strong in wealth, influence, char- 
acter ; on the other a little child of degraded color, of humble 
parents and still within the period of natural infancy, but 
strong from her very weakness, and from the irrepressible sym- 
pathies of good men, which by a divine compensation come to 
succor the weak." This little child, he said, asked at the hands 
of the court her personal rights. So doing she called upon it 
to decide a question which concerned the personal rights of 
other colored children — which concerned the Constitution and 



178 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

laws of the Commonwealth, which concerned the common 
schools of New England and likewise the Christian character of 
the community. 

Sumner then proceeded to make a careful argument in sup- 
port of his position. He insisted that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence holding that all men are created equal was embodied 
in substance in the bill of rights of the constitution of Massa- 
chusetts. He argued that this provision, of necessity secured 
to all children of the State the same educational advantages, 
that it was a violation of the fundamental law of the State for 
the School Committee of Boston to fix just two primary schools 
in that great city, where colored children might receive instruc- 
tion, while the city was dotted all over with schools for the 
education of those of a more fortunate color. He then showed 
that this declaration of the Constitution Iiad been embodied in 
the statutes of the State and the decisions of the Courts, that 
within the language of all there was nowhere any room for the 
discrimination that was being made. He dwelt upon the evil 
results to follow the creation of an aristocracy by law. He made 
his argument more a discussion of the intrinsic merits of the 
question than is customary in arguments to a court, with a 
view to its being read by the general public. It was some time 
afterwards distributed as a tract in other states where an effort 
was being made to abolish the discrimination against colored 
children in the schools. 

In closing, he reverted to his own experience, when at the 
Law School in Paris, he had sat for weeks on the same benches 
with colored pupils listening to the lectures of I)e Gerando and 
Eossi and could see no feeling shown towards them except of 
companionship and respect. And again at the Convent of 
Palazzolo, on the shores of the Alban Lake in Italy, where 
"amidst scenes of natural beauty enhanced by historical as- 
sociations," he had seen a native of Abyssinia mingle familiarly 
with the Franciscan friars whose scholar he was. " Do I err," 
he asked, " in saying that the Christian spirit shines in these 
examples ? " 

But the court refused the relief sought and sustained the dis- 
crimination made by the School Committee. Sumner always 
regretted that they thus refused the opportunity of establishing 
a precedent upon the question of schools, as the court had al- 
ready done upon the subject of slavery. But five years later 
the Legislature of Massachusetts advanced to the position Sum- 
ner had taken, by enacting a law declaring that race, color or 
religious opinion should make no distinction in the admission 
of any child to the public schools of the State and making tlie 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 179 

School Committee excluding a child, for such reason, from any 
public school, liable to him for damages. And this has ever 
since remained the law of Massachusetts. As in other instances 
Sumner was now only in advance of the public. 

For a member of the bar, a profession proverbially conserv- 
ative, he was singularly free from devotion to anything merely 
because it was established. But it is probable that we should 
now class him among reformers instead of among lawyers. 
Much of his time was given to the reforms he had interested 
himself in and he was much in the company of their advocates. 
The law was fast losing its charms. William Kent, Judge 
Story's successor in the Law School, and others of his friends, 
remembering how enthusiastic he had been in his legal studies 
and what an ornament, one, of his literary tastes, had promised 
to be to the profession, saw the change with regret and kindly 
remonstrated with him about it. But he knew better than they 
his reasons for it. 

His success in the law had not met his expectations. He did 
not often appear in court in the trial of cases. And his fees 
were not large. It is estimated that his yearly earnings, in his 
profession, did not exceed $1,000 to $2,000, a year, not more 
than sufficient for his personal expenses, tliough boarding, with- 
out charge at the family home. Wliat law business he did was 
carefully done ; but it was mostly work in his office for clients, 
who sought his advice or assistance in the settlement of es- 
tates and in making collections. These things he naturally felt 
were beneath the deserts of one who had spent such years in 
toilsome preparation as he had. It was galling to see young 
men, of much less desert, but of more fortunate connections, 
distancing him in the race for business. 

His experience as a Lyceum Lecturer had been an attractive 
one and his public addresses had been notably successful. They 
opened up to him new fields of pleasure and usefulness and 
were a new spur to his ambition. The delightful friendships, 
the public recognition, the consciousness of a widened influence 
and the hope of a larger fame, in this new field, were all unit- 
ing to draw him away from the law, a profession whose active 
practice he had to confess had never been attractive to him. 

At his office his friends still dropped in upon him and they 
rarely found him too busy to spend an hour in discussing the 
newest book or latest poem. He still spent his evenings at 
home, reading far into the night, — so late as to draw frona 
Horace Mann, who was solicitous for his health, the remarlf 
that he yielded obedience to all God's laws of morality, but 
thought "he was exempt from every obligation to obey his laws 
of physiology. 



CHAPTEE XVI 

ADMISSION OF STATE OF TEXAS — MEXICAN WAR — SUMNER's OP- 
POSITION TO IT — NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS — DECLINES — 
DELEGATE TO "WHIG CONVENTIONS — SPEECH FOR ACTION 

AGAINST SLAVERY WHITTIEr's POEM, " THE PINE TREE " 

WINTHROP RE-ELECTED CANDIDATES OF OLD PARTIES 

FOR PRESIDENT UNSATISFACTORY — VAN BUREN NOMINATED 
BY THE ANTI-SLAVERY PEOPLE — SUMNER A CAMPAIGN 
SPEAKER — AGAIN NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS AND AGAIN 
DECLINES — CHAIRMAN OF STATE COMMITTEE OF FREE SOIL 
PARTY 

On the 29th day of December, 1846, the State of Texas was 
admitted into the Union, with a pro-slavery constitution. This 
was another victory for slavery. It gave her two more votes in 
the Senate and six more in the House. The friends of Freedom 
had resisted, but in vain. Slavery was then dominant every- 
where. She had a submissive President and a well-trained 
representation in both the Senate and the House. By a skilful 
manipulation of the votes she could furnish, for the tariff and 
the internal improvements desired by the North, and the ad- 
vantages in training, by reason of the longer terms of service 
usually accorded her statesmen, she had a compact and efficient 
organization for the advancement of her interests. Her repre- 
sentatives in Washington were frequently men of large property, 
who had been accustomed to spend their summers on their plan- 
tations, with the easy life of country gentlemen and their win- 
ters in city homes, fond of society and pleasure, and everywhere 
dispensing an easy hospitality. They frequently brought their 
slaves to the capital and entertained handsomely and thus ruled 
the society of Washington. To enjoy their favor was to have 
social recognition in abundance, but their disfavor often made 
life in the capital unpleasant. So far, the South had not ex- 
perienced political adversity. She knew what she wanted and 
how to get it. 

The consciousness of this power naturally made Southern 
statesmen bolder. When they had added Texas as a new State 
to the Union, they were not satisfied with her boundaries as 
defined, by the river ISTueces, but they coveted the country be- 
tween that river and the Rio Grande. United States troops, 
180 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 181 

under General Taylor, were sent to occupy it. Mexico resisted 
this encroachment upon her territory and the Mexican War fol- 
lowed. Congress was asked to vote the necessary supplies and a 
bill was promptly introduced which declared : 

" Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of 
war exists between that Government and the United States, — 

" Be it enacted, etc.. That for the purpose of enabling the 
Government of the United States to prosecute said war to a 
speedy and successful termination, the President be, and he is 
hereby authorized to employ the militia, naval and military 
forces of the United States, and to call for and accept the ser- 
vices of any number of volunteers, not exceeding fifty thousand, 
and that the sum of ten millions of dollars be and the same is 
hereby appropriated for the purpose." 

This bill was passed by overwhelming majorities in both 
Houses of Congress and was promptly approved by the Pres- 
ident. The administration was in favor of this defensive war. 
But of the Massachusetts delegation in the House only two 
voted for it, one of these was Eobert C. Winthrop, who repre- 
sented Sumner's own district. He was a personal friend of 
Sumner, about his own age, and they had known each other 
from childhood. They had been at the Boston Latin School 
together and together again at Harvard. After leaving 
Harvard, their paths had diverged. Winthrop had been 
elected to the State Legislature and later became Speaker. 
Later still, he was sent to Congress and now he was a prospec- 
tive candidate for Speaker of the House ; coming thus early and 
continuously to public life, with good ability and a fine pres- 
ence, he had developed into an able and graceful speaker. He 
was descended from one of the Puritan Governors of the Colony 
and living in a city where ancestry always counted for much, 
he numbered among his friends and relatives many of the best 
people of his district. As would be expected from these sur- 
roundings, Winthrop was an agreeable, companionable gentle- 
man. He was always careful to observe the amenities of life 
and Sumner himself was indebted to him for many courtesies, 
often met him in society, had dined with him in Washington 
and was familiar in his home in Boston. 

With his strong anti-slavery convictions, Sumner, however, 
was chagrined at Winthrop's vote, on the Mexican War Bill. 
He had publicly denounced the annexation of Texas as an un- 
just aggression of slavery. And now that we should be plunged 
into a war, for the acquisition of the territory of a neighboring 
friendly nation, and an offensive war too, which Sumuer be- 
lieved to be wrong, was, as he felt, the perpetration of a national 



182 I^I^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

crime. There was a considerable party of people in Boston who 
felt as he did. Boston was the home of William Lloyd Garrison, 
the leader of the anti-slavery men of the country ; and there he 
published his paper, The Liberator, which advocated the aboli- 
tion of slavery, even at the sacrifice of the Union. Quincy, a 
suburb of Boston, was the home of John Quincy Adams, who 
had been sustained for years as the member for that district in 
the House of Representatives, where almost alone he had defied 
the slave-power and was now the recognized champion of Free- 
dom upon the floor. So that the anti-slavery movement in 
Boston at that time had some strength and some ability to make 
itself felt. 

But still it must be admitted there was a decided majority of 
the voters of Boston against it. Her seamen had a considerable 
carrying trade with the South and her merchants had many 
customers there. They felt that the interest of this trade and 
the tariff which was to be regarded as an off-set in the ITorth to 
slavery in the South, both of which appealed to their pockets, 
were to be placed above this merely moral issue. Daniel Web- 
ster was the ruling spirit and he, with such men as Nathan 
Appleton and George Ticknor, intensely conservative, satisfied 
with the present order of things, which guaranteed their su- 
premacy and opposed to any change, which might result in 
bringing new men to the front, were still easily able to control 
Boston. And so it was to continue yet awhile. But influences 
were at work which were soon to bring about a revolution in 
sentiment. 

The excitement following the declaration of war, caused Win- 
throp's vote to be overlooked, for two months after it was cast. 
Charles Francis Adams, in the Whig, was the first to call atten- 
tion to it. It was then taken up by other papers and an ex- 
tended and somewhat acrimonious discussion followed, some 
justifying it, and others condemning it. Sumner did not at 
first enter into the discussion, but being pressed by his friends, 
Adams and Howe, who knew from conversation, how he re- 
garded the vote, he took up the discussion and wrote three 
articles, which were published anonymously, but whose author- 
ship he did not attempt to conceal from Winthrop. 

On the 25th of October, 1846, Sumner addressed Winthrop 
an open letter. He carefully disclaimed any feeling, other than 
that of good will, mingled with recollections of pleasant social 
intercourse with him and insisted upon discussing his vote 
merely as an official act for which he was responsible to the 
people who had elected him and whose Representative he was. 
He also declined to discuss it, according to any scale of party 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 183 

expediency, but only asked whether it was Eight or Wrong. He 
argued that Congress alone had power to declare war and that 
without the passage of this act, which his vote sanctioned, the 
war could have no legal existence, that it was thus created and 
legalized and the means were thus furnished to continue an un- 
just and cowardly attack by a strong nation upon a weak one, 
merely with intent to rob it of its territory. He insisted that 
the preamble of the law, reciting that "by the act of the 
Eepublic of Mexico, a state of war exists," was a " brazen false- 
hood, and that, through him, his constituents were made to 
declare unjust and cowardly war, with superadded falsehood, 
in the cause of slavery/' To Winthrop's apology that he simply 
voted with the majority of the Whigs, Sumner answered 
" These majorities cannot make us hesitate to condemn such 
acts and their authors. Aloft on the throne of God, and not 
below in the footprints of a trampling multitude, are sacred 
rules of Right, which no majorities can displace or overturn." 
He insisted that the rules of right and wrong are the same for 
nations as for individuals and that as Winthrop would not lie, 
in his private life, so he ought not by his official vote to involve 
his constituents and his country in falsehood. He appealed to 
him to remember that he represented the conscience of Boston 
and the churches of the Pilgrims and urged him upon his return 
to Congress to lose no time in righting the wrong he had com- 
mitted. 

" It were idle to suppose," Sumner wrote, " that the soldier 
or officer only is stained by this guilt. It reaches far back and 
incarnadines" the Halls of Congress ; nay, more, through you, 
it reddens the hands of your constituents in Boston." Again: 
" Blood ! Blood ! is on the hands of the Representative from 
Boston. Not all great Neptune's ocean can wash them clean." 

These expressions were especially offensive to Winthrop. He 
insisted that his vote had been conscientiously given and that it 
was unfair to employ such language towards him. He declined 
any further communications with Sumner and refused his hand, 
saying: "his hand was not at the service of any one who had 
denounced it with such ferocity, as being stained with blood." 
Coming, as all this did, on the eve of Winthrop's re-election, it 
was freely discussed as one of the issues in the campaign. The 
canvass of his votes and speeches in Congress, where they 
touched upon the slavery question, gave him a disagreeable 
prominence. Winthrop was a sensitive man and in his speeches 
in the campaign resented Sumner's action and referred to his 
strictures in no complimentary terms. The affair caused a com- 
plete rupture of their friendly relations and for fifteen years 



184 ^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

they did not speak or even recognize one another when they met. 
Each pursued his own way upon the question of slavery and it 
is curious to note with what results. 

During his absence upon a lecturing tour in Maine, Sumner 
was nominated for Congress. The feeling against Winthrop 
among anti-slavery men had become so strong, that they would 
not vote for him. It could do no good and would show no more 
consistency to vote for either of the other candidates, the 
Democrat or the Independent. Besides anti-slavery men felt 
that the time had come for them to act independently of the 
old parties and unite, as a separate organization, upon the one 
issue of slavery. A meeting was held in Tremont Temple on 
the evening of October 29, 1846. It was called to order by Dr. 
Howe. Charles Francis Adams was elected President and John 
A. Andrew, afterwards the War Governor of Massachusetts was 
chairman of the committee to propose a candidate and draft 
resolutions. 

Sumner when privately approached had repeatedly refused 
to allow the use of his name as a candidate. Besides his un- 
willingness to enter public life he did not desire his criticism of 
Winthrop to be weakened, by the imputation that it was inspired 
by an unworthy ambition for his place. Mr. Andrews made a 
speech before the meeting, in support of the nomination, in 
which he said : " this nomination has been made upon the entire 
responsibility and sense of duty of this committee, — not only 
without the knowledge, approbation, or consent of Mr. Sumner, 
but in the face of his constant, repeated and determined refusal, 
at all times, to allow his name even for a moment, to be held at 
the disposal of friends for such a purpose." They felt, how- 
ever, that Sumner was the logical candidate and they hoped to 
overcome his scruples against standing for the place. But 
Sumner was determined ; and upon his return from Bangor, 
two days later, by an open letter, he declined to allow the use of 
his name ; and that of Dr. Howe was substituted. 

At the Whig primary in 1846, Sumner was chosen one of the 
delegates from Boston to the State Convention. The Conven- 
tion was held in Boston. A caucus of the Boston delegation was 
held at the United States Hotel, the evening preceding the Con- 
vention, at which the differences between the older and younger 
Whigs became apparent. The older leaders desired that there 
should be no split in the party and urged that the delegation 
should stand together, in the convention, for a platform which 
would put forward the old issues of the tariff and internal im- 
provements and keep back those of slavery and State rights, — a 
platform which would be broad enough to unite both wings of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER J85 

the party, North and South. The younger Whigs believed that 
the moral issues were of paramount importance and should be 
put forward. 

The same difference appeared in the Convention, the next 
day. It had been arranged that after the business of the Con- 
vention had been transacted about which there was little con- 
troversy, the selection of othcers and candidates, that Robert C. 
Winthrop should introduce the other business, that of drafting 
the platform, in a carefully prepared speech, counselling mod- 
eration and an adherence to the landmarks of the party. But 
the younger Whigs, advised in advance of this programme, be- 
fore Winthrop could be brought forward, called loudly from 
different parts of the hall for Sumner. He responded to the 
call and advanced to the platform and spoke earnestly upon the 
anti-slavery duties of the Whig party, urging the Convention 
not to lose sight of the great responsibilities of the hour, but to 
act firmly and take high ground upon the question of slavery. 
When Sumner stopped, Winthrop followed him, with his speech 
as previously arranged and showed some feeling in his manner, 
towards Sumner. 

By this time the committee on resolutions, which had retired 
before the call was made for Sumner, was ready to report. 
Its report was not satisfactory to the anti-slavery Whigs and 
an amendment was offered by Stephen C. Phillips, embodying 
their views. In offering his amendment he supported it by a 
brief speech, which was answered by Linus Child, and he was 
in turn replied to by Charles Francis Adams, all showing some 
feeling. Each of the speeches was loudly applauded by their 
respective supporters. By this time the convention was in an 
uproar and bid fair to disband in confusion. Lawrence, Win- 
throp and Child were seen in anxious consultation, and imme- 
diately Fletcher Webster left the hall. He soon returned and 
after a whispered conversation, Lawrence went out. 

In a few minutes Lawrence was seen, returning with Daniel 
Webster on his arm. The sight of the aged statesman with his 
marvelous presence and manner, such as perhaps no other man 
ever had, around which was now gathered the halo of his great 
name, was enough to set a Whig convention in Boston wild with 
enthusiasm. On the arm of Lawrence, Webster walked slowly 
|Up the aisle the whole length of the hall, to the platform. The 
■delegates mounted upon their seats, waving their hats and 
handkerchiefs and shouted themselves hoarse. It was a scene 
,long to be remembered. 

\ The debate upon the amendment to the platform ceased upon 
the appearance of Mr. Webster. When he reached the stage 



186 J-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and took his seat, after order was restored, the debate was 
resumed. But the fate of the amendment was already sealed. 
His appearance at the decisive moment, with Mr. Lawrence, 
whose opposition was already known, Mr. Webster's own views 
upon the necessity of a union of all the Whigs, so often ex- 
pressed and emphasized, something in his manner now, which 
told where he stood, the encouragement it gave the opposition 
and the embarrassment it caused the supporters of the amend- 
ment, were too much. Besides, the country delegates were 
compelled to leave, to catch the trains for their homes. This 
operated against the anti-slavery men, for they were generally 
in favor of the amendment, while the Boston delegates, a large 
proportion of the Convention, were generally opposed to it. 
And the amendment was lost. 

Mr. Webster, thus far, had not spoken a word. But after the 
vote was taken, he made a short speech to the Convention and 
again aroused it to the highest enthusiasm. He urged the im- 
portance of a union of all the Whigs, saying: " Others rely on 
other foundations and other hopes for the welfare of the 
country ; but for my part, in the dark and troubled night that 
is upon us, I see no star above the horizon promising light to 
guide us, but the intelligent, patriotic, united Whig party of 
the United States." 

Sumner had referred to Webster in addressing the Conven- 
tion and had urged him to espouse the cause of Freedom, and 
add the title of Defender of Humanity to the other titles he 
had already earned — Defender of the Constitution and De- 
fender of Peace, — assuring him that he would thereby add to 
the fame that was already his. Two days later he addressed Mr. 
Webster a letter in which, after expressing his high regard for 
him, he again pressed him to declare himself against the ag- 
gressions of the slave power. To this letter, ten days later, 
Mr. Webster replied that he had ever cherished a high respect 
for Sumner's character and talents and had seen with pleasure 
the promise of his future eminence, but confessed that in politi- 
cal affairs they entertained a difference of opinion and took a 
different view of the line of duty most fit to be pursued. 

John G. Whittier, on the other hand, after reading the report 
of Sumner's speech and the other proceedings of the Conven- 
tion, sent him his poem, " The Pine Tree," in autograph. 

" Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, 
Give to Northern winds the Pine Tree on our banner's tattered fields; 
Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, 
Answering England's royal missive with a firm " Thus saith the Lord " 
Rise again for home and freedom ! — set the battle in array ! — 
What the fathers did of old times we their sons must do to-day." 



LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 187 

"Tell us not of banks and tariffs — cease your paltry, pedler cries, — 
Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? 
Would you barter man for ccjtton ? That your gains may sum up higher, 
Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? 
Is the dollar only real? — God and Truth and Right a dream? 
Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam? 
* * * Where's the man for Massachusetts? Where's the voice to speak 

her free? 
Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? 
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? — 
Has she none to break the silence ? Has she none to do and dare ? 
O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield, 
And to plant again the Pine Tree in her banner's tattered field ? " 

Little did Whittier then see the future of the young man he 
addressed and how fully he was to realize, in him, the wish of 
that hour ! 

But it was too early then for any one to see far into the future 
upon tlie question of slavery. The election came. Winthrop 
had 5,980 votes; Howe only 1,334; Homer (Democrat), 1,688; 
Whiton (Independent), 331. The issue which Winthrop repre- 
sented and the fight made against him by the anti-slavery men, 
attracted to him a good many votes from the Democrats, who 
had no chance of electing their candidate, and he was trium- 
phantly elected. The large vote he received was an apparent 
vindication of his vote on the Mexican War bill as well as his 
record upon the slavery question. Sumner's efforts to the con- 
trary seemed futile. 

But the end was not yet ; and the subsequent careers of Win- 
throp and Sumner present a curious contrast in the anti- 
slavery contest. Winthrop, in 1847, was a candidate for 
Speaker of the House and his course in Congress and in the 
last campaign having satisfied the Southern wing of his party 
he was elected, though the anti-slavery Whigs, Giddings, Pal- 
frey and Tuck voted against him. Two years later he was again 
returned to Congress and was again a candidate for Speaker 
and was again opposed by the anti-slavery Whigs, now increased 
in number to nine; but this time he was defeated by Howell 
Cobb of Georgia, the candidate of the extreme pro-slavery men. 
In July, 1850, Winthrop was appointed by the Governor of 
Massachusetts to fill the vacancy in the Senate caused by the 
resignation of Daniel Webster; and he was a candidate for 
the full term succeeding, but was defeated. In 1851, he was a 
candidate for Governor and was again defeated. There his 
political career ended. 

He had favored the annexation of Texas, with a pro-slavery 
constitution, had voted for the Mexican war and had supported 



188 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

it, he had refused to assist in excluding slavery from the Ter- 
ritories and favored President Taylor's policy of non-interven- 
tion, he had approved the course of Webster in his seventh of 
March speech and had fought the efforts of the anti-slavery 
men of Massachusetts to check the encroachments of the slave 
power. They had come to regard him as the leader of the pro- 
slavery influence of the State and they therefore marked him 
for defeat. They triumphed in the election of Sumner to the 
Senate and Winthrop's official career ended where Sumner's 
began. Sumner's ended with his death. 

Winthrop lived till 1894 and maintained his reputation to the 
end as a refined and scholarly gentleman. Being an accom- 
plished speaker, he was frequently called upon to deliver ad- 
dresses upon commemorative occasions. As a lecturer, he also 
gained a wide reputation and in Boston was ranked second only 
to Wendell Phillips. But he was not, after 1851, known as a 
factor in politics. He spent the balance of his life devoted to 
literature and scholarly pursuits. 

In January, 1847, Sumner argued before the Supreme Court 
of Massachusetts, an application for a discharge, made by some 
volunteers, in a regiment enlisted for the Mexican war. The 
regiment was organized, upon the proclamation of tlie Governor 
of Massachusetts, under the act of Congress authorizing the 
President to call for 50,000 volunteers. The application for 
discharge was made on behalf of some minors, who repented 
their too hasty enlistment. It was based upon the unconstitu- 
tionality of the Act of Congress, and the question whether a 
minor is bound by a contract of enlistment. Sumner argued 
earnestly, and especially desired the court to hold, tliat the act 
was unconstitutional, but the court, while deciding the case in 
favor of his clients, placed its decision upon the ground of the 
minority of the applicants. 

To give expression to their feeling and, if possible, to enlist 
public sentiment with them, the opposition in Boston to the 
war, called a mass meeting, to be held in Faneuil Hall, on 
February 4, 1847. They urged the withdrawal of the United 
States troops from Mexico. The speakers were Sumner, James 
Freeman Clarke, John M. Williams, Theodore Parker, Elizur 
Wright and Walter Channing. They were young men and some 
of them afterwards became famous. But the men who were 
older and were recognized as leaders in Boston were not there. 
Some of them were pro-slavery in their sympathies and favored 
the war; others while questioning the justice of it, did not care 
to antagonize the popular enthusiasm which our victorious army 
had aroused. The meeting did not prove a very enthusiastic 



° 1 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER jgg 

one. The speakers were repeatedly interrupted by persons in 
the audience, some recognized as volunteer soldiers, who tried 
to drown their voices. Sumner's speech was mainly a parallel 
between the condition of our people in the war for independ- 
ence and that of the Mexicans in the present war, — a train 
of thought which he afterwards enlarged upon in some other 
addresses. 

However dark the prospect had so far seemed to the friends 
of freedom in Boston, they were not disposed to be discouraged. 
They had at least the consciousness of a good cause. Their in- 
terest in politics was not prompted by a desire for office, but by 
an abiding conviction that slavery was wrong and a blot upon 
the fame of their country that should be removed. They there- 
fore persevered. 

On the 5th of September, 1847, Sumner attended the primary 
of the Whigs in Washingtonian Hall, Boston, for the choice 
of delegates to the State Convention. He introduced a series 
of resolutions declaring the Mexican war one of aggression and 
conquest and therefore a national crime and rendered more 
hateful, as seeking to extend and strengthen the slave power; 
and that for the sake of the constitution which it violated and 
the treasure which it wasted and the innocent lives which it 
cost, our troops should be at once recalled. They declared 
against the acquisition of any more territory and insisted 
that if any more was acquired, slavery should be forbidden in 
it. Sumner, Charles Francis Adams and J. S. Eldredge spoke 
in favor of them ; James T. Austin and William Hayden against 
them. A motion to lay them on the table finally prevailed. It 
was too soon for the Whigs of Boston to be thus frank upon the 
question of slavery. But the name of Sumner was placed at the 
head of the list of delegates to the State Convention chosen at 
the primary. 

The Whig Convention was held at Springfield on September 
29. Daniel Webster was present and addressed the convention 
and a resolution was adopted indorsing and recommending him 
to the National Convention as a candidate for President. 
While this resolution was pending, John G. Palfrey moved an 
am.endment to it, that the Whigs of Massachusetts would sup- 
port no man for President or Vice-President, who was not 
known by his acts and declared opinions to be opposed to the 
extension of slavery. Webster, as was already well known, was 
hedging upon this question and seeking for the vote of both 
wings of the party. But this amendment was not aimed alto- 
gether at him. It was the outcome of a conference among the 
anti-slavery Whigs, who felt aggrieved at the Southern mem- 



;^90 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

bers of the party, who would not support any one for office who 
was not known to be favorable to slavery. The anti-slavery men 
hoped by pursuing the same course to secure concessions to 
themselves or at least to show the futility of undertaking to 
longer unite two such discordant elements. Palfrey, Sumner, 
Charles Francis Adams, William Dwight and Charles Allen 
spoke in favor of the amendment and Winthrop and John C. 
Grey against it. The amendment was lost. 

Sumner closed his speech to the convention, full of earnest- 
ness, with these words : " Be assured, sir, whatever the final de- 
termination of this convention, there are many here to-day who 
will never yield support to any candidate for the Presidency or 
Vice-Presidency, who is not known to be against the extension 
of slavery, even though he have freshly received the sacramental 
unction of a * regular nomination.' We cannot say with delect- 
able morality, ' our party right or wrong \ The time has gone 
by when gentlemen can expect to introduce among us the disci- 
pline of the camp. Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty 
to party. The first is a heavenly sentiment, from God ; the 
other is a device of this world. Far above any flickering light 
or battle lantern of party is the everlasting sun of Truth, in 
whose beams are the duties of men.'* 

Sumner was disappointed at the vote of the convention. It 
was taken late in the evening, when the light in the hall was not 
good; and though the amendment was declared lost, there were 
some who questioned the correctness of the count. The " Con- 
science Whigs," as the anti-slavery members of the party were 
now called, left the convention dissatisfied and debating what 
course to pursue, some were for submitting, others for bolting. 
Sumner was for some months in correspondence with Thomas 
Corwin of Ohio, whose vigorous speech in the United States 
Senate, in opposition to the Mexican war, met his hearty ap- 
proval. He desired an organized, independent movement of 
anti-slavery men of all parties and favored the nomination of 
Corwin for President. 

Corwin himself at first favored independent action. But by 
October, 184:7, he had changed his mind and was back in the 
ranks of the Whig party to stay and to uphold its waning for- 
tunes to the end. He was growing old and had been an orator 
of rare power and dramatic talent. His efforts in Congress and 
on the stump had gathered around him multitudes of admirers 
in the party. They had honored him with a seat in Congress, 
the Governorship of Ohio and the seat in the Senate he now 
occupied. These were high places ; and he could not find 
it in his heart to break these associations of a lifetime. Who 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 191 

would now blame him for it! He was afterwards Secretary 
of the Treasury, a member of Congress and Minister to 
Mexico. It was left to younger men, of fewer political attach- 
ments and perhaps of sterner mould, to bear the brunt of the 
fight that was now opening. Sumner regretted the defection of 
Corwin from them, as well as the failure to establish an anti- 
slavery test for office in the Whig convention. 

It was left to the great parties to compel, by their action, a 
break with the anti-slavery forces. The Democrats in Balti- 
more, in May, 1848, nominated Lewis Cass for President, who 
had lately by his vote against the Wilmot Proviso given satis- 
factory evidence to pro-slavery men of his loyalty to them. The 
Whig convention met in Philadelphia, in June, and nominated 
Zachariah Taylor, himself a slaveholder and the successful 
general of the Mexican war. How could anti-slavery men con- 
scientiously vote for either? Webster had few votes and no 
chance of the nomination at Philadelphia. The nomination of 
Taylor was a foregone conclusion, but when it came it caused 
a scene in the convention. Charles Allen and Henry Wilson of 
Boston, both delegates, as soon as the result was announced, 
arose in the convention and, amid great confusion, declared 
they would not support the candidate. Wilson insisted that 
Taylor did not represent the sentiment of the party and that he 
would do all he could to defeat the ticket. The declaration was 
met by a storm of hisses, but it found some approving spirits, in 
the convention as well as out of it. 

That day's work gave birth to the party that destroyed 
slavery. The new movement was at first known as the Free 
Soil, and afterwards as the Eepublican, Party. The dissatisfied 
Whigs, anticipating what was likely to, and really did happen, 
in the nomination of Taylor had prepared in advance a call 
for a mass convention of persons of all parties who were dis- 
satisfied with the nomination of Cass and Taylor to meet at 
Worcester, on June 28, and take such action as the occasion 
demanded and to co-operate with the other Free States in a 
convention for the same purpose. Charles Francis Adams' 
name stood first of those who signed this call and Sumner's 
next. Sumner was active in procuring speakers and making 
preparations for the convention. As many as five thousand per- 
sons assembled at Worcester in answer to the call and the City 
Hall, where they had arranged to meet, being too small to ac- 
commodate them, they adjourned to the Commons. Samuel 
Hoar of Concord was made chairman and Dr. Howe one of the 
vice-presidents, and Allen, Wilson, Joshua R. Giddings, Chas. 
F. Adams, Sumner and E. Kockwood Hoar, were among the 



193 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

speakers. The speakers were all deeply in earnest and united 
firmly in renouncing former party ties and in favoring the 
nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President, 
to represent those who were opposed to the extension of 
slavery. 

Sumner's speech was short. He dwelt upon the power that 
the advocates of slavery had acquired in our politics. He re- 
minded them that the great men of our Revolution had all 
deplored the evils of slavery and that the Constitution had 
placed it where it was believed to be in the course of ultimate 
extinction. But it had not been extinguished. It was reaching 
out for more territory out of which to make more slave States. 
It was insisting that it should be legalized in places where it was 
supposed to have been forever excluded. It had proposed a new 
test for office, that would have excluded Washington, Jefferson 
and Franklin from the public service, placing its ban on every 
one, who dared to pronounce it wrong. It had lately, he re- 
minded them, dictated to both parties their nominees for Pres- 
ident. Sumner especially deplored the combination which had 
accomplished the nomination of Taylor, " an unhallowed 
union — conspiracy, let it be called — between two remote sec- 
tions : between the politicians of the Southwest and the politi- 
cians of the Northeast — between the cotton planters and flesh- 
mongers of Louisiana and Mississippi and the cotton-spinners 
and traffickers of New England, — between the lords of the lash 
and the lords of the loom." He argued that the triumph of 
either party would be a victory for slavery and insisted that the 
only course left for anti-slavery men was to nominate a ticket 
of their own and thus the slave power would be confronted with 
the power of freedom. 

'^ But it is said," he exclaimed, rising to his full height, " that 
we shall throw away our votes and that our opposition will fail. 
Fail, sir ! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail. 
It may not be crowned with the applause of men; it may not 
seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is 
the end and aim of so much in life. But it is not lost. It helps 
to strengthen the weak, — to arm the irresolute with proper 
energy, — to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end 
conquers all. Fail ! Did the martyrs fail, when with precious 
blood they sowed the seed of the church ? Did the discomfited 
champions of Freedom fail, who have left those names in his- 
tory that can never die ? Did the three hundred Spartans fail, 
when in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innu- 
merable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun ? 
Overborne with numbers, crushed to earth, they left an ex- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 193 

ample greater far than any victory. And this is the least we can 
do. Our example will be the mainspring of triumph hereafter. 
It will not be the first time in history that the hosts of Slavery 
have outnumbered the champions of Freedom. But where is it 
written that Slavery finally prevailed ? " 

The convention adopted resolutions and an address to the 
people, and chose six delegates at large to the National Conven- 
tion, called to meet at Buffalo on August ninth. Charles 
Francis Adams headed the list of these delegates. Delegates 
were afterwards chosen to represent each congressional district. 
E. H. Dana was chosen in Sumner's district, Sumner was not a 
delegate but concurred, in the choice of Dana to represent his 
district and of Adams as their State representative. He was a 
cordial and enthusiastic worker in the cause, unselfish in his 
devotion to it and loyal in the support of his friends. He, how- 
ever, attended the convention at Buffalo and was pressed to 
speak but declined. 

Salmon P. Chase was the chairman of this convention and 
Joshua R. Giddings, David Dudley Field, Preston King and 
Samuel J. Tilden were among the delegates. It was an un- 
usual gathering. It lacked in large measure, the place-seekers 
and the customary scrambling for office, while an unaccustomed 
religious air pervaded many of its meetings, showing that more 
than usual, the people of principle and men who would repre- 
sent principle were there. 

Martin Van Buren was nominated for President and 
Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. No question could 
be made of the sincerity of Adams. But there was some doubt 
of the real purpose of Van Buren in joining the movement 
and accepting the nomination. He had already filled the office 
of President and had well earned the distinction of being one 
of the shrewdest politicians the country had produced. This 
new move proved again his title to this distinction. Daniel 
Webster appreciated the situation, when he said, a few weeks 
later : " If Van Buren and I were to find ourselves together 
under the Free-Soil flag, I am sure that with his accustomed 
good nature, he would laugh. . . . That the leader of the 
Democratic party should so suddenly have become the leader 
of the Free-Soil Party would be a joke to shake his sides and 
mine." 

But it was not altogether a joke with Van Buren. Cass was 
now the candidate of the Democratic party, — the party Van 
Buren had so often guided to victory. Between Van Buren and 
Cass there was an old grudge. Cass had allowed himself to be 
received upon his return from the Ministry to France in 1843, 



194 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

with great popular demonstrations, as a candidate for Pres- 
ident ; and in the Democratic convention of 1844, had allowed 
himself to be voted for by the pro-slavery wing of his party, 
who were seeking to punish Van Buren, also a candidate, for 
opposing the annexation of Texas, and who did accomplish his 
defeat, by the nomination of Polk. Besides, the Van Buren 
faction of the New York Democracy had sent a contesting 
delegation to the Baltimore convention that nominated Cass and 
if admitted their votes could have defeated him. Afraid to 
exclude them entirely, for New York, with her large electoral 
vote, could decide the election, — the convention had oifered to 
admit both delegations, with an equal division of the vote. But 
the Barn-Burners, as Van Buren's wing was called, who repre- 
sented the New York anti-slavery Democrats, had spurned this 
proffered compromise and returned to their homes. The 
Hunker wing had remained, but afraid of the effect of their 
votes in the election, if it should be said that they had nom- 
inated Cass, they refrained from voting and his nomination was 
made without the participation of New York. 

The Van Buren wing, upon their return home, had issued a 
call for a State convention to be held at Utica on the 22d day 
of June. But before this day came, the widespread dissatis- 
faction, with the candidates of both parties and the call for 
the Buffalo convention of August ninth had absorbed the atten- 
tion of those who were dissatisfied and all other movements were 
merged in that. Sumner had preferred Corwin or Webster as 
the candidate and Judge McLean had been approached, but each 
after dallying with the movement, had drawn away from it. 
But Van Buren, seeing an opportunity to square some old 
accounts had expressed his willingness to stand. He was sup- 
ported by the compact organization of the New York Barn- 
burners and was nominated. Sumner, frank of nature him- 
self, was ready to take men at their word and welcome new 
recruits to a good cause from every side. He heartily accepted 
the result. 

On the evening of August twenty-second, he presided at a 
meeting in Faneuil Hall to receive the report of the delegates 
to the Buffalo convention and to ratify the nominations. On 
taking the chair he made a brief speech. He said that the meet- 
ing was in the interest of Freedom whose cause was in danger, 
that the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence 
were assailed and that a body of men whose principles were un- 
known to the framers of the Constitution, the slave power, had 
seized the government and now controlled both parties, that 
Whigs and Democrats were but rival factions of one party — the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 195 

slave party, that at Baltimore the delegations of the most im- 
portant State of the Union known to be in favor of the Wilmot 
Proviso had been refused admission to the convention, while at 
Philadelphia the Proviso itself was stifled amid cries of " Kick 
it out," that Cass was nominated at Baltimore, pledged against 
its whole principle, while at Philadelphia, Taylor, a slave- 
holder, was nominated without any platform ; but at Buffalo 
men of all parties united in opposition to slavery. In speaking 
of the candidates, he said that some like himself had once voted 
against Van Buren, the Democrat, and he regarded some 
portions of his career with anything but satisfaction, and that 
others of those present had doubtless voted against Adams, the 
Whig, but that these differences were forgotten now. " Time 
changes," he said, " and we change with it. He has lived to 
little purpose, whose mind and character continue through the 
lapse of years, untouched by these mutations. It is not for the 
Van Buren of 1838 that we are to vote, but for the Van Buren 
of to-day." 

Sumner took an active part in the campaign, speaking at the 
principal places in Massachusetts, beginning at Plymouth. He 
gave one week to Maine and, though he was invited to take part 
in the campaign in other States and to speak in New York, 
Philadelphia and Brooklyn, he declined. His speech ordinarily 
occupied three hours in the delivery and though it was some- 
times past midnight when he closed, he kept the attention of 
his hearers to the end. Contemporary chroniclers are uniform 
in their testimony of the beauty and winning power of the 
speech. Though his cause was not popular, in the twenty-eight 
places that he spoke in Massachusetts, he was never rudely in- 
terrupted, but once, and this was at Cambridge, the scene of so 
many pleasant associations of his youth, where a considerable 
sprinkling of students from the South and from the aristocratic 
and conservative families of Boston, reflected their home sen- 
timents. Here he was interrupted with some yells and hisses. 
But he met them promptly and by singling out and shaming the 
ringleaders, he quelled the disturbance. The sounds grated 
harshly on the refined and sensitive ears of Longfellow, who 
was present and thought he saw the loss of Sumner to the 
literary career he had coveted for him. 

Others saw it differently. To them it was the appearance of 
a new man, in the political arena, representing a new party. 
He was estimated to be the ablest speaker of his party and 
widened his fame as an orator. His addresses so far had been 
before colleges or societies for the promotion of some reform, 
or in lecture lyceums, where privileged classes of superior 



196 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

culture had heard him. But now he came before the plain 
people of his State. Others, perhaps, like Charles Allen, who 
was elected to Congress from the Worcester district, drew larger 
numbers of converts to the cause. This was owing to the re- 
moteness of the influence of Webster and of aristocratic Boston, 
where party lines were more sharply drawn. And something 
must be granted to Sumner even in Worcester, for he spoke 
there in the convention and in the campaign. But by common 
consent he drew the most admiration and won the first place in 
the estimation of his party. 

In October Sumner was nominated for Congress in the First 
]\Iassachusetts district. He was not present at the convention, 
but had authorized a delegate, if his name was mentioned as a 
candidate, to publicly announce his declination to accept any 
political office. Notwithstanding, he was nominated by ac- 
clamation and the committee in notifying him of it, urged that 
a political crisis had come which called upon every man to 
forego his personal wishes. He accepted the nomination in a 
letter dated October 26, 1848. Keferring to his own wish he 
said: 

" The member of the convention who spoke for me, at my 
special request, did not go beyond the truth. I have never held 
political office of any kind, nor have I ever been a candidate 
for any such office. It has been my desire and determination 
to labor in such fields of usefulness as are open to every private 
citizen, without the honor, emoluments or constraint of office." 

" You now bid me renounce the cherished idea of my life, 
early formed and strengthened by daily experience, especially 
by circumstances at the present moment. In support of this 
request you suggest that a political crisis has come which calls 
upon every man to forego his personal wishes. Upon serious 
deliberation, anxious to perform my duty, I feel myself unable 
to resist this appeal. In my view a crisis has arrived, which 
requires the best etforts of every citizen, nor should he hesitate 
with regard to his peculiar post. Happy to serve in the cause 
he should shrink from no labor and no exposure." 

The Presidential election took place on November seventh. 
In Massachusetts, Taylor had 61,072 votes; Van Buren 38,133 
and Cass 35,284. By dividing the Democratic vote, the Free- 
Soil party had made Taylor's success easy. In New York 
where the electoral vote was much larger and the issue conse- 
quently much more important, the same result was brought 
about." Taylor had 218,603 votes; Van Buren 120,510 and 
Cass 114.318. The vote of New York controlled the election 
and Taylor won. The Whigs of that State^ both pro- and anti- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 197 

slavery, mistrusted Van Buren. They had fought too many 
battles with him to be easily cajoled. William H. Seward, who 
possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men, 
on the stump, seconded by Horace Greeley, in the editorial 
chair, with Thurlow Weed to organize the campaign, made a 
combination perhaps never equalled; and they fought a most 
earnest fight for General Taylor. But while A^an Buren, as he 
was shrewd enough to anticipate, could get few Whig votes, he 
hopelessly divided his old companions in victory, the Demo- 
crats, defeated Cass and squared one of his political accounts. 
He was then ready to return to his first love and ever after, to 
the day of his death, in 1862, continued a consistent Democrat. 

The election in Massachusetts for State officers and members 
of Congress took place the week after the Presidential election. 
Little time remained for farther work. Sumner had been made 
chairman of the State Committee of the Free-Soil party. Two 
days after the Presidential election he prepared, and the com- 
mittee adopted, an address to the voters of the State. After 
congratulating them upon the fact that almost 40,000 had de- 
clared their adhesion to tlieir party and that they were not now 
the third party, he urged them in the next election, by greater 
efforts, to make themselves the first. " Ours is the cause of 
truth, of morals, of religion, of God. Let us," he wrote, " be 
united in its support ! ' A stout heart, a clear conscience, and 
never despair.' These were the last words addressed in writing 
by John Quincy Adams to a person deeply interested in our 
movement." The address urged them to apply these words to 
themselves. It was signed by Sumner as chairman, and by the 
other members of the committee ; and it is interesting to note 
among the names of these members of the committee, then 
mere politicians for the sake of principle; J. A. Andrews, 
afterwards War Governor of Massachusetts; John G. AAHiittier, 
the poet; E. Eockwood Hoar, later a Congressman; and Amasa 
Wahvcr, the Political Economist. 

Sumner's nomination for Congress had been, as he himself 
expressed it, "like a forlorn hope." The party had been or- 
ganized only six months before the election. Until the Presi- 
dential election, the estimate of the vote it would poll could be 
little better than conjecture. The large vote it received, with 
the older politicians and political speakers working against it, 
with their compact organizations, and only the younger men 
in its favor, and they little kno^vn to fame or influence, showed 
how strong a dislike there was among the plain people to the 
principles and bullying attitude of the slave power. In the two 
great States of New York and Massachusetts, it had a larger 



198 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

vote than the Democratic party. In Sumner's district, it poled 
at the Presidential election 1,909 votes as against 8,427 for 
Taylor and 2,997 for Cass. This was in conservative Boston. 
But in the week following, these figures were materially 
changed. At the Congi-essional election then held, Sumner 
increased the vote of his party from 1,909 to 2,336, a fact 
which showed something for his personal influence and popu- 
larity. Winthrop had 7,72G and Hallett 1,460. Winthrop was 
elected ; but Sumner was second. 

The election of 1848 had a great influence upon the political 
fortunes of the country. Prior to that time, there had been a 
great deal of discussion of the slavery question, both in Congress 
and before the people. Many good people had deplored the 
existence of slavery and by constant agitation had done what 
they could to arouse public sentiment against it. But till now 
there had been no organized political movement against it, no 
independent effort, when the people were squarely appealed to, 
by their votes to curb its power. Always before, this feeling of 
opposition had been hushed up with threats of disunion, or so 
complicated with other issues that the anti-slavery question 
was hardly recognizable. But now, for once. Freedom had ob- 
tained a hearing and the people had spoken with emphasis, and 
it was found how considerable a number of voters was ready to 
join a party under this battle-cry alone. Its success gave a 
bolder tone to its voice and confidence to its advocates. Hence- 
forward it was to be a distinct force in politics, becoming con- 
stantly more powerful till it finally triumphed. 

For Sumner the influence of the election was no less decisive. 
He could be fairly said to have earned the title of leader of the 
party in Massachusetts. True, there was Charles Francis 
Adams, who had been the candidate for Vice-President on the 
ticket with Van Buren. But he was the editor of The Daily 
Whig, and his duties had confined him to his paper. And there 
was Charles Allen, of Worcester, who had been carried into 
Congress on the top wave of the movement. But Sumner's 
fame as a speaker had outreached all the others. And his chair- 
manship of the committee had brought him into prominence 
and into intimate relations with the workers of the party. The 
people liked the fearlessness, the earnestness, the absence of 
self-seeking and the high moral tone of the man. The move- 
ment was partly a rebellion against the leadership of men in 
politics, who, in their care for themselves and the offices gave too 
little heed to the needs of their constituents and the rights of 
humanity. Sumner was more according to their ideal than the 
men they had been supporting for high places. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 199 

He was honest. This was the tower of his strength. ITe 
made it the rule of his life to see where the right lay and then 
pursue it. And he voiced the sentiment of many good people 
when he wrote on July 0, 1849: "The National Government 
has been for a long time controlled by Slavery. It must be 
emancipated immediately." He hailed the promise now of a 
North which would spurn the " mockery of a Republic with 
professions of Freedom on its lips, while the chains of slavery 
clanked in the Capitol." 

As chairman of the State Committee of the Free-Soil party, 
Sumner called the State Convention to order in Worcester. on 
September 12, 1849. He had arranged for speakers to address 
the convention. Among them were Charles Francis Adams, 
Charles Allen, Anson Burlingame and Edward L. Keyes. 
Stephen C. Phillips, of Salem, was nominated for Governor. 
He was a wealthy merchant who had previously been a Whig 
and had been sent by his party to Congress. John Mills, for- 
merly a Democrat, of Springfield, was nominated for Lieuten- 
ant-Governor. Sumner was made chairman of a committee to 
report an address and resolutions, to be published to the people 
of the State, setting forth tlie principles and purposes of the 
party. The committee was composed of one member from each 
county of the State. John G. Whittier was the member from 
Essex. 

Sumner prepared the address and read it to the convention. 
It occupied more than an hour in the reading. It was an 
elaborate and carefully prepared vindication of the principles 
of the Free-Soil party. It insisted that the old political issues 
of the Bank, the Sub-treasury, the Public Lands and even the 
Tariff were all obsolete. Quoting from both Clay and Polk, 
the leaders of their respective parties, he showed that both 
Whigs and Democrats occupied the same ground upon tlie 
Tariff and that Webster for the Whigs, and Walker for the 
Democrats, were both pleading for its withdrawal from the list 
of issues, so that the industries of the country might not further 
suffer from the uncertainty caused by its discussion ; that the 
great issue now was. Are you for Freedom or are you for 
Slavery? He regretted that we had drifted away from the 
sentiment of the great men who had achieved our independence 
and organized our government, and that from being anti- 
slavery we had now become a pro-slavery nation. The address 
then enumerated the usurpations of the slave power : 

The Slave States were far inferior to the Free States, in 
population, wealth, education, libraries and resources of all 
kinds, and yet they had taken to themselves the lion's share of 



200 I^I^E OF CHARLES 8UMNER 

honor and profit under the Constitution. They had held the 
Presidency for fifty-seven years, while the Free States had 
held it for twelve only. 

Early in the century, when the District of Columbia was 
occupied as a National Capital, the slave power succeeded in 
defiance of the spirit of the Constitution and even of the express 
words of one of its amendments, in securing for slavery, within 
the district the countenance of the government. Until then 
slavery existed nowhere on land within the exclusive jurisdic- 
tion of the nation. 

It secured for slavery another recognition in the Territory 
of Louisiana, purchased from France. 

It placed slavery under the sanction of the government in 
the Territory of Florida, purchased from Spain. 

It was able, after a severe struggle, to compel the government 
to receive Missouri into the Union with a pro-slavery con- 
stitution. 

It instigated and carried on a war in Florida, mainly to 
recover fugitive slaves. 

It wrested Texas from Mexico to extend slavery and finally 
secured its admission as a State with a constitution making 
slavery perpetual. 

It next plunged the country into a war with Mexico to gain 
new lands for slavery. 

It compelled the government to refuse to acknowledge the 
republic of Hayti, where slaves had become freemen and had 
established an independent nation. 

It compelled the government to stoop before the British 
queen to secure compensation for slaves who had asserted and 
achieved their freedom on the Atlantic Ocean and afterwards 
sought shelter in Bermuda. 

It compelled the government to seek the negotiation of 
treaties for the surrender of fugitive slaves. 

It joined in declaring the foreign slave trade piracy, but in- 
sisted upon legalizing the coast-wise slave trade. 

It had rejected for years petitions to Congress against 
slavery, thus denying the right to petition. 

It had imprisoned and sold into slavery colored citizens of 
Massachusetts. 

It had insulted and exiled, from Charleston and New Or- 
leans, the representatives of Massachusetts, who were sent to 
those places as commissioners of the State to protect her colored 
citizens. 

In the formal dispatches of John C. Calhoun, as Secretary 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 201 

of state, it had made the Republic appear as the vindicator of 
slavery. 

It iiad put forth the doctrine that slavery could go to all 
newly acquired territories and have the protection of the flag. 

In defiance of the declared desire of the Fathers to gradually 
extinguish slavery, it had successively introduced into the 
Union, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas as slaveholding States 
to fortify its political power and make the government lend it 
new sanction. 

By such steps, he argued, the national government had been 
perverted from its original purposes, its character changed and 
its power subjected to slavery. This should not have been per- 
mitted to befall a government nursed by Freedom into strength 
and quickened by her into those activities which are the highest 
glory of a nation. 

The Address then asked the question, Shall slavery be ex- 
tended into the territories of California and New Mexico and 
they be admitted as slave States? It insisted that a direct pro- 
hibition by law was necessary to prevent this. It defined the 
position of the Free-Soil party towards these accumulated and 
threatened aggressions — that it was pledged to the prohibition 
of slavery in the Territories and wherever else the national 
government was responsible for it, that the District of Colum- 
bia was national territory and must be cleared of it, that the 
nation must be made to stand openly, actively and perpetually 
on the side of freedom and that while it might have no power 
to abolish it in the States where it already existed it should 
be made to step to the very verge of its authority in this direc- 
tion. This, with cheap postage, the Address added, and an 
economical administration of the government, abolishing un- 
necessary officers and electing the others, as far as practicable, 
by the people, the improvement of our rivers and harbors and 
free public lands, enough for homes for actual settlers, were 
the principles of the Free-Soil party. 

The Address was violently attacked by the Daily Atlas and 
other Whig papers of the State. In one issue the Atlas ques- 
tioned a statement of the Address that Washington had de- 
clared his sympathy with the work of the Anti-slavery Societies 
and that in any movement for the abolition of slavery his vote 
should not be wanting. Sumner, then in New York, wrote in 
reply to the denial of the truthfulness of these statements, an 
open letter, quoting numerous writings of Washington to sus- 
tain his position. The attitude of the press towards the Free- 
Soil party and its advocates had been peculiarly personal. The 



202 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

increasing circulation of the Whig, the anti-slavery organ, 
edited by Charles Francis Adams, which Sumner had assisted 
in establishing and to whose columns he was a frequent con- 
tributor, was disturbing the older papers, as the large vote of 
the Free-Soil party was disturbing the Whig politicians. They 
referred to Sumner, Adams and Palfrey as " The Mutual 
Admiration Society," " Charles Sumner & Co." Sumner they 
called " a transcendental lawyer," Palfrey was " Judas," 
Adams, " a political huckster," etc. This bitterness of the 
Whigs naturally made political combinations between the Free- 
Soilers and Democrats easy. 

The State was Whig in politics. This party had, therefore, 
everything to lose by a change in party lines, as then existing. 
The Democrats, on the contrary, had everything to gain and 
hence were willing to let events take their course and even help 
along dissensions among the Whigs. In the election of 1849 
therefore, the most important feature was the combination 
made between the Free-Soilers and Democrats. They elected, 
in this way, thirteen Senators and one hundred and thirty 
Representatives, in the State. The Free-Soil vote of the previ- 
ous year had been kept well up and the results secured were 
suggesting to thoughtful men that these combinations could 
be made useful in the future. 



CHAPTER XVII 

FRIENDS DROPPING AWAY THE CAUSE — EFFECT ON SUMNER — 

NATHAN APPLETON, ABBOT LAWRENCE, THE TICKNORS 
GONE — BUT NOT LONGFELLOW, HOWE, BANCROFT, PRES- 
COTT, KENT — NEW FRIENDS 

The years from 1845 to 1850 were eventful ones in the 
private life of Sumner. Judge Story was dead and with him 
was gone one of the strongest ties that bound Sumner to Har- 
vard and the quiet student life of his youth and early man- 
hood. Professor Greenleaf was in failing health. He resigned 
his professorship in 1848 and died in 1853. Their places in 
the Law School were filled. The old, familiar faces about the 
college were disappearing and new ones were taking their 
places. Sumner felt the distance between him and Cambridge 
increasing. 

The friends of his own age were changing also. Their paths 
were diverging. Most of them were not interested in slavery 
and were not willing to go to the lengths upon this subject that 
he went. They thought him extravagant and visionary, in his 
views. He was too much of an idealist for their practical eyes. 
The subject which occupied so much of his time and thoughts 
was distasteful to them, slavery was unpopular in the circles 
where they moved and they did not wish to be compromised 
with it. It was far away from them, out of their sight and 
/they knew little and cared less about it, while the good will of 
their own community brought bread and butter to them and 
their families and was much more important. 

Sumner's controversy with Winthrop about his vote on the 
Mexican war bill has already been mentioned. It alienated 
many of his friends. He and Winthrop, being young men, of 
about the same age, always living in Boston and educated 
together, had many mutual friends. But Winthrop had the 
advantage of Sumner, in this : he was the member of Congress 
and controlled the appointments to the Federal offices in his 
district. This naturally attached a wide circle to his interest. 
Sumner had no political prestige, except such as in a private 
station, his talents gave him. The controversy in the papers 
was long and acrimonious and was renewed in their speeches. 
On the part of Winthrop it became personal. Sumner was care- 
203 



304 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



ful not to allow it to be so on his part. He wrote his brother 
George, still in Europe, that if he met Winthrop, who was ex- 
pected in Paris, he should not allow it to make any difference in 
his treatment of him, that he had no feeling towards Winthrop 
personally, but of kindness, and would not if it were otherwise, 
wish his relatives to take up liis controversy. 

John Quincy Adams died in Washington during the progress 
of the controversy. When the aged statesman was stricken 
with paralysis in his seat in the House, Winthrop being Speaker, 
had him carried to the Speaker's room, where he lay till he 
died, two days later. With his abounding courtesy, Winthrop 
was unremitting in his care of him and offered many civilities 
during the progress of the funeral to the friends. Charles 
Francis Adams, the son, could not forget this. He had till 
then been the editor of The \Y\ng; and had written some 
caustic criticisms of Winthrop's vote, but touched with this 
kindness and occupied with the settlement of his father's affairs, 
he felt he could no longer take part in the controversy and 
soon gave up the management of the paper. During the 
interval between his father's death and his retirement from 
The Whig, some two months, Sumner edited the paper. He 
was urged to become the permanent editor, but declined. 

Palfrey and Howe, who had taken some part in the criticism 
of Winthrop, had long before disappeared from the controversy, 
and on the retirement of Adams, Sumner was left alone to end 
it and to inherit the accumulated ill-will reserved for the last 
champion of the fight. Having entered it reluctantly and only 
after it had been commenced by others, and upon their solicita- 
tion, he had received more than his share of the ill-feeling it 
engendered. 

When later he went into the movement to organize the Free- 
Soil party and appeared upon the stump, championing its cause 
with all the earnestness he did, he touched Boston society at 
another tender point. He was striking at the success of the 
Whig party and around it gathered much in which Boston took 
a just pride. The massive eloquence of Daniel Webster and 
liis great career as a statesman ; the more ornate, if less power- 
ful oratory of Choate and Winthrop and Everett ; the charming 
society of George Ticknor and his accomplished wife (he had 
been Minister to Spain) ; the accumulated capital of the Boston 
merchants and manufacturers in their commerce with the cot- 
ton planters of the South ; the youth and beauty, the best 
eociety and the pleasantest homes, for a quarter of a century, 
had gathered about the Whig party. It had given offices and 
honors to her citizens. There is no surer way to cause a separa- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



305 



tion of pleasant lifetime acquaintances than to join and persis- 
tently advocate a new political party, hostile to one that has 
long held sway in a community. Sumner had dared to do this 
and he encountered the customary storm. 

He did it fully realizing the consequence to himself. " I do 
not say that I can," he wrote his brother George, "but I do 
strive in what I do, to think as little as possible of what others 
may think of it and of its influence on my personal affairs. In 
such a mood, criticism unfavorable and hostile, neglect and 
disfavor, lose something of their sting. What is it to an earnest 
laborer, whether one or ten societies recognize him by their 
parchment fraternization, or whether reviews frown or smile? 
And yet it cannot be disguised that praise from the worthy is 
most pleasant and that all tokens of kindly recognition are valu- 
able. But it is not for these that we live and labor." 

And a little later, just after the election of 1848, he wrote 
George again: " You will see that the Free-Soil party comes out 
second best; it is no longer the third party. I have spoken a 
great deal, usually to large audiences and with a certain effect. 
As a necessary consequence I have been a mark for abuse. I 
have been attacked bitterly; but I have consoled myself with 
what John Quincy Adams said to me during the last year of his 
life : ' No man is abused whose influence is not felt.' " 

But strive against it as he would, Sumner realized his isola- 
tion. He had no wife and no children to occupy his thoughts 
or afford him relaxation. His home was with his mother, who 
was growing old and lived very quietly. It was not convenient 
for him to entertain his friends there. In the years following 
his return from Europe, he had been a general favorite and 
was much sought for in society, and with his social disposition 
he had become accustomed to pleasure and relaxation. He was 
fitted to be a good fellow, was not ascetic in his tastes, enjoyed 
good fare and was not averse to a glass of wine. He was a 
good talker and having travelled much and read more could 
sustain his part in company. To feel that he was cut off from 
many of the homes where he had been so welcome before, bore 
heavily upon his sensitive nature. Riding one day in a car- 
riage with Richard H. Dana, Jr., down Beacon Street, one of 
the centres of Boston's best social life, he said sadly: "The 
time was when there was hardly a home within two miles of 
this place, at which I was not a welcome guest. Now hardly 
one is open to me." Dana, too, had felt the burden of social 
ostracism, but being surrounded by an interesting family, it 
bore less heavily upon him. 

The " Five of Clubs " was now little more than a memory. 



206 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Cleveland having died in 1843, Howe had taken his place, but 
its members, save Sumner, were all married and had families. 
They had no regular meetings. Each was absorbed with his 
own work; Howe with the Asylum for the Blind, Felton and 
Longfellow with their professorships. Hillard and Sumner oc- 
cupied offices together at Number Four, Court Street; but 
there was a want of the old cordiality between them. Hillard 
had come under the influence of the Ticknors. But there had 
been no break. When he went to Europe, in 1847, he left 
his will with Sumner and wrote him an affectionate farewell, in 
which he referred to their happy relations of other years and 
admitting they had not been so cordial of late and had differed 
in politics, he begged Sumner not to remember it unkindly, that 
he had been subjected to other influences and, at most, it was 
only an honest difference of opinions, to which each was en- 
titled. " I have never loved you the less," he added, and * * * 
" I write these words for you to think upon in case we should 
never meet again." But upon his return Hillard took other 
offices. Sumner and Felton differed radically. Felton did not 
undertake to conceal his disapproval of Sumner's course in 
politics; and they parted. 

One of the houses where Sumner had long been intimate 
was that of Nathan Appleton, a distant connection by mar- 
riage. 

He was a wealthy merchant, the father-in-law of Longfellow, 
had repeatedly represented Boston in Congress and was a man 
of considerable influence. But he was an uncompromising 
Whig and ready to follow where his party led. He had been a 
loyal friend of Sumner till his controversy with Winthrop, but 
took offense at that and again at tlie statement in Sumner's 
speech at the organization of the Free-Soil party in Worcester 
in 1848, that Taylor's nomination had been the result of a 
conspiracy between the lords of the lash of Louisiana and the 
lords of the loom of New England. Seeing the drift of Sum- 
ner's course in the controversy with Winthrop and before, ho 
had at first sought to win him back. " I have regretted," he 
wrote, " your course the last two years but more in sorrow than 
in anger. I have regretted to see talents so brilliant as yours 
and from which I had hoped so much for our country, take a 
course in which I consider them worse than thrown away." But 
after the Worcester speech, considering the reference to the 
" lords of the loom " to be partly to himself, he desired a retrac- 
tion of it. He called upon Sumner to produce the proof to 
sustain such a charge ; and he did. An acrimonious letter from 
Mr. Appleton followed, which terminated their friendship. 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 207 

In defending the language of the Worcester speech, Sumner 
had referred to a conversation with Abbot Lawrence, at his 
house, before the Philadelphia convention, in which Mr. Law- 
rence had expressed himself to him as favorable to Taylor's 
nomination and had said that he did not think Webster could be 
nominated, or, if nominated, could be elected and had named 
other prominent Massachusetts Whigs, among them Nathan 
Appleton, who were of the same opinion; and that Mr. Law- 
rence had permitted and promoted the use of his name as a 
candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Taylor, and all 
the while Webster was being held up as the candidate of the 
State for the nomination for President, During the campaign, 
Sumner had also made use in his speeches of a letter of Law- 
rence, who was a prominent manufacturer, another of the 
" lords of the loom " to prove that the tariff was not the cause of 
the existing depression in business. Lawrence had authorized 
The Atlas to say that Sumner had perverted the language 
of the letter and Sumner called upon him for an explanation. 
All this angered Lawrence and he wrote him a caustic letter, 
in which, without undertaking to give the explanation Sumner 
had asked, he proceeded to condemn Sumner's Worcester speech 
and his course upon the slavery question. " I could name," he 
wrote, " scores and scores of men whom you have honored your 
whole life who regret and condemn the course you have taken." 
And again, after the election, to an overture of Sumner for a 
renewal of their friendship, he wrote : " You and I can never 
meet on neutral ground. I can contemplate you only in the 
character of a defamer of those you profess to love, and an 
enemy to the permanency of the Union." 

The evidence shows that Sumner was right in believing 
there was an arrangement among some of the JIassachusetts 
Whigs to nominate Lawrence for Vice-President on a ticket 
with Taylor and thus ignore Webster, who was the ostensible 
candidate of the State. Lawrence was voted for, and it was 
thought would have been nominated, but for the defection of 
Henry Wilson and Charles Allen of the Massachusetts delega- 
tion, who, it will be remembered, both arose in the convention, 
after Taylor's nomination was announced and declared it did 
not represent the Whig party, and Allen added that he would 
do all he could to defeat the ticket. So John Tyler was nomi- 
nated for Vice-President and Massachusetts got nothing. But 
after the election Lawrence was made Minister to England. I 
think, however, in this sweeping charge of dislo5^alty to W^eb- 
ster some men, like Eufus Choate were included who were en- 
tirely innocent. Webster felt his defeat keenly and the guilty 



208 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

as well as the innocent regretted the incident. The discussion 
of it, however, was calculated to produce intense feeling and 
do little good. 

Among others that it offended were the Ticknors. They were 
very loyal to Webster and hesitated to believe that any one in 
Massachusetts could be otherwise. They regretted that his last 
days were to be embittered by the thought that his friends were 
untrue to him. They were leaders in the society of Boston and 
exerted much influence in determining who were to be received 
in their set. Their loss was a severe one to Sumner. George 
Ticknor had been a professor in Harvard, was the author of a 
History of Spanish Literature, had travelled much and was 
wealthy. His wife was a brilliant woman. Both were fond of 
society and they entertained a great deal. Their home was the 
centre of the kind of society that Sumner enjoyed, where books 
and art and public men and measures were discussed and what 
was refined and gentle held sway. They united with others to 
carry politics into society. It so resulted that Sumner was 
almost banished from the social life of Boston for a number of 
years. 

Feeling became so great that if he went into society, he was 
likely to meet with persons, who by turning their backs upon 
him, by cold looks and slighting remarks, often purposely loud 
enough for him to hear them, and by such other annoyances, 
made it so unpleasant that he did not care to go again. The 
young people of Boston at that time were accustomed, if they 
danced, or even if they did not, but enjoyed a social gathering, 
to meet at some public hall for an evening's enjoyment. But 
the social pressure became so great that Sumner gave this up 
too. Even wlien his friends invited him to smaller and 
more select parties, to avoid the unpleasant meeting of persons 
who would not speak, they were obliged to choose the company 
he was to meet, with care. 

But party feeling, warm as it became, was not able to control 
the social life of some homes where Sumner was familiar. 
Notable among these was Longfellow's. Though Longfellow's 
wife was the daughter of Nathan Appleton, who had shown so 
much feeling towards him on account of his deflection from 
the beaten path, Sumner's habit of taking Sunday dinner at 
the Craigie House, their home in Cambridge, going thither 
after church and remaining for a social chat of two or three 
hours, suffered no interruption. The occupants of the Craigie 
House were far too high in their ideals to let a political differ- 
ence control their friendships. Sumner continued, as before, 
to take his European friends, when in Boston, there to call, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 209 

and when they had invited company that they knew he would 
enjoy, they did not hesitate to make liim one of the number. 
Through all the years their friendship continued the same, till 
terminated by death, and it impresses us still as one of the 
most beautiful friendships in history. 

That with the Howes continued unbroken. They were in 
complete sympathy with Sumner's political course. And at 
their apartments in the Asylum for the Blind, Julia Ward, 
now Mrs. Howe, presided with the same grace that had exerted 
so strong a charm over Sumner's earlier years. There he found 
pleasant society to which he was always one of the most wel- 
come. In her girlhood she was, it will be remembered, one of 
the " Three Graces ", and the sentiment of those days, when 
the colors of life's picture were brightest, clung around her 
still with softening tints as the struggle became more stern and 
lonely to him. She was an accomplished musician and her 
husband's earlier career had been full of interest. Sumner 
delighted to spend an evening with them and thus break the 
solitude of his bachelor life. 

The awakening of Sumner's taste for music belongs to this 
time of his life. He had resorted to the opera a good deal in 
earlier years, in company with his sister Julia. When cut off 
from society he found a new pleasure in it. It seemed, as he 
expressed it, as if he had found a new sense. He went very 
frequently and did not often let an opportunity go unimproved 
to hear a prima donna. He never became a musician himself, 
but lie was very fond of music. In Washington, at any unusual 
musical entertainment, when his Senatorial duties would per- 
mit, his place was seldom vacant. It became a common source 
of recreation to him. 

During the long winter evenings he plunged into his books 
and read late into the night. Some of his friends remonstrated 
that such hours, as he kept, must result in breaking down his 
health. But he confessed to them that he felt lonesome. They 
were happy in their homes with their wives and their families, 
while he was deprived of this source of pleasure. He admitted 
that he envied them the happiness they enjoyed. They rallied 
him about remaining single, and he enjoyed this raillery, in fact 
seemed rather to encourage it; but the old excuse remained, 
he did not think his income sufficient, his mother needed his 
company ; and perhaps his thoughts wandered tenderly back to 
■other days when, with a kindlier fortune, a happiness such as 
these nearer friends enjoyed might have come to him. 

One of the homes he most enjoyed was that of George Ban- 
croft, the historian. He was a Democrat and hence did not 



210 I-JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

have the feeling of his \^^iig friends, whose party was being 
split up with dissensions about slavery. It will be remembered 
that lip to this time, the anti-slavery Whigs had been making 
combinations in Massachusetts with the Democrats so as to 
help one anotlier with their elections. Bancroft and his wife 
were interested in the slavery discussions and were fond of 
Sumner. He frequently spent an evening at their house and 
watched the progress of the History of the United States, upon 
which Bancroft was engaged, reading the proofs of the volumes 
before their publication. He did a similar service for Long- 
fellow and Prescott. Mrs. Bancroft was a kind, motherly 
woman to whom Sunmer was much attached. But Bancroft 
went to Europe in 1846, as Minister to England. Sumner cor- 
responded with them and enjoyed their letters. They cautioned 
him not to be too extreme in his political views and discussed 
them with his European friends, who were eager for news of 
him. But Sumner had in turn to correct the erroneous impres- 
sions of some of his English friends, which they seemed to have 
received from the Bancrofts. 

Lord Morpeth wrote him not to be quixotic, even in so right- 
eous a cause, and Sumner in answer wrote that his position was 
simply that " the Federal Government should make all legal 
and constitutional efforts for the removal of this monster evil,'* 
but he was careful to add, that he was not one of those who at- 
tacked the Constitution and the Union and would destroy both 
to destroy slavery. He reminded Morpeth that he was not in 
good standing with tlie Abolitionists, because he fell so far 
short of their views, but admitted that he could not see with 
complacency this curse unchecked in its career in his native 
land. He urged Morpeth to jar Prescott a little, who seemed 
to be so indifferent about it. 

Morpeth did not enjoy letter-writing, yet he was still loyal to 
Sumner and seemed to take an almost brotherly interest in his 
success. But Sumner's correspondence with European friends 
was not so frequent as it had been. He had an occasional letter 
from Lady Montagu, who still maintained her kindly interest 
in him. Richard Cobden, Robert Ingham, Joseph Parkes, 
John Kenyon and Professor Whewell also wrote him occasion- 
ally from England; Professor Mittermaier and Dr. Julius 
•wrote from Germany; George W. Greene from Rome, others 
as Earl Fitzwilliam and Earl Wharncliffe, commended their 
friends to him by letters of introduction, when they were about 
to visit Boston. They all showed their continued friendly in- 
terest, reminding him of their pleasure in his former visit and 
hoped he would come to Europe again. And he took pleasure 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 211 

when they or their friends were in Boston in taking them to 
such homes of his friends as Longfellow's and Prescott's. 

Prescott like Longfellow never allowed politics to interfere 
with his friendship for Sumner. But, unlike Longfellow's, 
his view differed radically from Sumner's. He belonged to the 
intensely conservative class then numerous in Boston and, in- 
deed, generally in the North, who while admitting slavery was 
wrong, still insisted it was none of their business, that it be- 
longed to the South and it was her duty to destroy it, that the 
North had suffered too much disturbance on account of it al- 
ready. Prescott and Longfellow both had summer homes, out 
of tiie city and Sumner was in the habit of visiting at both. 
He and Prescott occasionally took a trip together — to Wash- 
ington and to New York. Prescott being unable to write by 
reason of his defective sight, Sumner then acted as his sec- 
retary. Their relations were too pleasant to be disturbed by 
politics, for which Prescott confessedly cared little. 

And some, other than Sumner's literary friends, refused to 
participate in the disposition to cut him for his politics. Of 
these was William Kent, the son of Chancellor James Kent of 
New York. They appreciated him for other reasons and would 
not let this one flaw, as they considered it, destroy their ap- 
preciation of so much beside, that they saw good in him. Kent 
was for two years after the death of Judge Story, a lecturer in 
the Harvard Law School, the place Sumner had once coveted ; 
and while there he and Sumner had formed a lasting friend- 
ship. He left Cambridge in 1847, but continued to correspond 
with Sumner. He called him, in one of his letters, his " warm- 
hearted, but politically considered, most erring friend," ad- 
mitted the generous and noble motives in his career and tried 
to reclaim him to the Whigs. But Sumner was not to be re- 
claimed. He was too firmly convinced he was right and felt 
hurt that Kent should have thought so lightly of his convic- 
tions. 

Kent answered : "^ Rightly considered, what I wrote was 
proof of esteem, like Parson Thwackum's birching of Tom Jones. 
Had you been an ordinary philanthropist, a common abolition- 
ist, a mere ranting patriot, like some of your friends, I should 
never have troubled myself about you. * * * Now, my dear 
Charlie, believe that you have a most affectionate friend in me. 
I will fret and carp no more. Ride your hobbies all over the 
cote gauche. I will get out of the way when the fit is on you, 
and always be, yours truly and faitlifully." 

It argues something for Sumner's decision of character that 
he was able to see one friend after another drop away from 



212 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

him, or criticise his course as wrong, and still go calmly on to 
the accomplishment of his great j^urpose, sinking all thoughts 
of himself and of his own comfort, in the attainment of what 
he had dedicated himself to accomplish. He loved the society 
of his friends and he was sensitive to the slights that were 
thrust at him, but he was bent on doing his duty as he saw 
it, and for this he was willing to put aside other considerations, 
waiting for a later time to bring him the plaudit that he 
thought would follow. "To the motto on my seal, ' Alter i 
saeculo ' ," John Quincy Adams had written him, " add, 
Delenda est servitus ". Unlike Adams, Sumner lived to see 
the service for another generation become the work of his 
own. 

While Sumner lost many friends, by his political course he 
also gained some new ones. It brought him into close relations 
with John Quincy Adams, whose warfare for freedom was draw- 
ing to a close. He had retired from the Presidency in 1829, 
sixty-two 3'ears of age, a time in life when most men consider 
their life work done and their laurels gathered. But Adams 
the next year accepted a seat in Congress and there for eighteen 
years he worked out the greatest part of his career. He had 
occupied the highest office in the gift of his country, his fame 
Avas secure, his position with his constituents in the Quincy 
District was also secure and so without ambition and without 
fear, the Scylla and Charybdis of so many political careers he 
was left, with great ability and with unparalleled industry to 
devote himself to the anti-slavery cause. It can truly be said 
that no slave-holder ever held the whip over him. His atten- 
tion was first attracted to Sumner by his oration on " The 
True Grandeur of iSTations ". But it was after Sumner en- 
listed in the anti-slavery cause that they became intimate. 
From that time to the close of his life, Sumner saw and con- 
versed with him frequently, during the vacations of Congi"ess, 
when at his home in Quincy. 

Some of this intimacy was brought about by Sumner's as- 
sociations with his son, Charles Francis Adams. He was four 
years Sumner's senior. They had known each other for a 
long time but their intimacy sprang from their activity in the 
anti-slavery campaigns. They, with others, had purchased a 
Boston newspaper. The Whig, that they might have a 
means of reaching the public. The editing of this paper 
brought them much together. Sumner was a frequent con- 
tributor and the controversy with Winthrop, on his part, was 
carried on through its columns. In the absence of Adams, 
Sumner was its editor. They were thus brought closely to- 






LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 213 

gether and a similarity of tastes resulted in a lasting friend- 
ship and comj^ensated Sumner for the loss of other friends. It 
was fruitful of great results to both. Adams was instrumental 
in placing Sumner in the Senate ; and it was largely on Sum- 
ner's recommendation that Adams became Minister to Great 
Britain, during the Civil War, in which position he gained a 
lasting fame. The Adams family was the most prominent one 
in Massachusetts and while not distinguished for some popular 
traits, their marked ability, their industry and their sturdy 
honesty, with the prestige of their history, made their influence 
at the time an important one. 

Another friend who came to Sumner in the same way was 
Henry Wilson. This friendship too was lasting. From 1855 
to 1873, Wilson was Sumner's colleague in the Senate. From 
a poor boy, the son of a farm laborer, apprenticed first to a 
farmer and then to a shoemaker, by name Jeremiah Jones 
Colbait, which he had changed to Henry Wilson by the Legis- 
lature, he arose through successive grades to the second place 
in the Republic. He was elected Vice-President on the ticket 
with Grant. He had been a member of the Legislature and a 
State Senator and was now one of the foremost champions of 
the anti-slavery cause. He had gone out of the convention, 
offended at the nomination of Taylor and promptly joined the 
Free-Soil Party and became Chairman of its State committee, 
in 1849, to succeed Sumner. He was the editor of a Free-Soil 
paper, the Boston Republican, from 1849 to 1850, and in 1851 
he was the unsuccessful candidate of the party for Congress 
and in 1853 the unsuccessful candidate of his party for Gov- 
ernor. The mere statement of these facts shows how close his 
course lay to Sumner's and how firm their friendsliip was. 

Prominent among Sumner's new friends should be mentioned 
Joshua R. Giddings, for twenty years the Representative in 
Congress of the North-east Ohio district and next to John 
Quincy Adams, the greatest early champion of Freedom in the 
House. Adams had said to Sumner, as he lay on his sick bed in 
Quincy, after he was stricken with the paralysis that later, at 
Washington, closed his life, that he looked to Giddings with 
more interest than to any other member of the House. Sum- 
ner had sent Giddings a copy of his oration on " The Scholar, 
the Jurist, the Artist and the Philanthropist." Giddings ac- 
knowledged it in a complimentary letter, the first that passed 
between them. Sumner met him first, at the convention to 
organize the Free-Soil Party, held in Worcester in 1848, where 
they both spoke and again when Giddings came to Boston to 



214 -^-^^^ ^^ CHARLES SUMNER 

attend the funeral of John Quincy Adams, It is a curious 
fact that ostracism on account of his political creed was carried 
so far in the House, that Giddings was denied a place on the 
Congressional committee to attend the remains of his venerable 
colleague to their last resting place, though they had together, 
bravely and almost alone, for many years, borne the storm of the 
unpopularity of the anti-slavery cause in the Capitol. But he 
went privately to pay his debt at the grave of his friend. From 
this time until Gidding's death in 1864, he and Sumner, when 
not together in Wasliington, maintained a cordial correspond- 
ence. Until his election to the Senate, Sumner relied on him 
for information of what was transpiring at Washington and 
asked his advice about political movements at home. 

Such were some of Sumner's more intimate new made 
friends, but by no means all of them. He was also making a 
wide circle of acquaintances in his campaign work, among the 
members of his party, in the places where he spoke ; and his 
chairmanship of the State Committee of the Free-Soil Party in 
1848, contributed largely to the same result. He had thereby 
of necessity become acquainted with the leaders of his party 
in every county of the State. This acquaintance was often 
slight, but such persons coming to Boston, frequently dropped 
into his office and a passing acquaintance often ripened into 
a lasting friendship. Such anti-slavery men as resided in Bos- 
ton often brought him business, as well as their good will. It 
was so in the case of the Adams family. 

But, generally speaking, his politics did not contribute to 
his professional success. Clients who furnish the most business 
are not usually much engaged in politics, especially politics 
of his kind, that furnished no material advantage and was be- 
sides unpopular. They could easily see that Sumner's thoughts 
were not absorbed with his law office and he did not get the 
business because they thought it would not receive his best 
attention. With feeling running against the anti-slavery men. 
in Boston, some thought to gratify their dislike, by inaugu- 
rating a systematic boycott against the members of the unpopu- 
lar party. They withheld from them their own business and 
sought to influence others to do likewise. The prominence of 
Sumner in the party, made him a shining mark for their dis- 
like. His professional income at this time was not more than 
sufficient for his own personal expenses, and they were mod- 
erate, — only the ordinary expenses of an unmarried attorney, 
with a modest office and a summer's vacation. 

Sumner devoted much of his time in 1850 to an edition of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 216 

his Speeches and Addresses which was published in Boston in 
two volumes. A third volume, of more recent addresses, in- 
cluding his speech on the Crime against Kansas was issued in 
1856. Before their publication he made a careful revision of 
them. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 — WEBSTER's SEVENTH OF MARCH 

SPEECH THE ELECTION COALITION OF FREE-SOILERS AND 

DEMOCRATS SUMNER A CANDIDATE FOR SENATOR THE 

LONG CONTEST — SUMNER ELECTED — HIS ACCEPTANCE OF 
THE OFFICE 

The year 1850 was an eventful one for Massachusetts. 
Henry Clay had been returned to the United States Senate, in 
the hope that he might present some measure that would pacify 
the constantly rising animosity between the North and the 
South and he again established his right to be called " the 
great pacificator ". The territory that we had acquired by 
the war with Mexico and out of which tlie South had hoped 
to gain more slave states had proved a disappointment to that 
section. The discovery of gold in California had caused a 
large influx of population, mostly from the North into this 
part of the newly acquired territory. It was now seeking ad- 
mission with a constitution prohibiting slavery. This had an- 
gered the South. Clay introduced a series of resolutions to 
pacify this feeling. They provided for the admission of Cali- 
fornia, without slavery, and as the Nortli had been insisting 
upon the prohibition of slavery in all the territory acquired 
from Mexico, a second resolution provided governments for 
this territory without prohibition or permission of slavery, — a 
concession to the South. Another concession to the South 'was 
the allowance of $10,000,000 to Texas in aid of the payment 
of her debt. As a counter concession to the North, the slave- 
trade, — the buying and selling but not the holding of slaves — 
was to be prohibited in the District of Columbia. As an off- 
set to this, a law for the apprehension of fugitive slaves was to 
be enacted. As proposed, it had two provisions in it that were 
especially obnoxious to the North ; first, it provided no trial by 
jury of the right of the alleged slave to his freedom, and, sec- 
ond, it allowed the IT. S. commissioner, who had the sole power 
of deciding upon his right to freedom, a fee of Ten dollars in 
case of a conviction and only Five dollars, if freed, thus offer- 
ing the judge a bribe for conviction. 

At the beginning of the session Robert C. Winthrop, of Bos- 
ton was defeated, as has been mentioned in his race for the 
216 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 217 

Speakership of the House by Howell Cobb, of Georgia. Cobb 
was elected by a plurality, but not by a majority of the vote 
cast. This was the first time that a speaker had been so 
elected; and, by anti-slavery men it was regarded as another 
encroachment of the South. As the Session wore away the 
people watched with new interest the debate on the compromise 
measures. One after another of the leaders of the section had 
spoken, — Clay and Cass, Benton and Douglas, Jefferson Davis 
and R. M. T. Hunter, John P. Hale and William H. Seward, 
Thos. Corwin and Salmon P. Chase. These were great men and 
they have a permanent place in history. One incident gave 
the debate in the Senate a dramatic interest. John C. Calhoun, 
the veteran champion of the South was passing away. He 
prepared his last set speech, on these resolutions and attempted 
to deliver it on March fourth, but his strength failed and he 
had to have it read for him. Within a month he was dead. 

New England waited for the voice of Daniel Webster. She 
had waited for it often, to lift her head in triumph after he 
had spoken. He had never spoken otherwise than for free- 
dom, from the time when he had bid the distant generations 
hail and farewell at Plymouth Rock and hurled his bolts at the 
South in his reply to Hayne, down to this hour. He was by 
conviction and training a religious man. Some of the most 
effective passages in his orations had been spoken when he 
paused in the course of his argument to make some graceful 
acknowledgment of the obligations of religion and of the 
wisdom and goodness of God. Once, at least, in the Girard 
Will case, he had appeared as the champion of the Christian 
ministry and his argument had become a classic. How could 
New England believe that he would now prove false to these 
pledges ! First came intimations that he was hesitating in his 
lifelong course, that he was dallying with slavery and that 
he was not right upon the Compromise. The few who heard 
the report did not believe it. But on the seventh of March, 
1850, he delivered the speech that has ever since been known 
by the date of its delivery and has made that day memorable. 
While from a literary standpoint, it is one of the least inter- 
esting of all his speeches, the reproach it has brought upon its 
author has made it one of the best known. The worst fears of 
the friends of freedom were realized. 

The speech coming from some of the extreme pro-slavery 
men of the South would not have attracted attention. But 
Webster had deliberately said that all Christendom was " bound 
by everything which belonged to its character and to the 
character of the present age, to put a stop to this inhuman 



218 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and disgraceful traffic." How could New England believe that 
Daniel Webster who had spoken so decidedly upon this question 
and who had never abated one jot of his deliberately formed 
opinion would now say: 

" There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as 
tender as any of their brethren at the North who do not see 
the unlawfulness of slavery, and there are more thousands, 
perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, 
and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things 
as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation 
of society in which they live, can see no way, in which, let their 
opinions on this abstract question be what they may, it is in 
the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from 
this relation. And candor obliges me to say, that I believe they 
are just as conscientious, many of them, and as religious 
people, all of them, as they are at the North who hold different 
opinions." 

In this same speech, he said: "I wish it to be distinctly 
understood that according to my view of the matter, this Gov- 
ernment is solemnly pledged, by law and contract, to create new 
States out of Texas, with her consent, when her population 
shall justify and call for such a proceeding, and, so far as 
such States are formed out of Texas territory lying south of 
36° 30', to let them come in as slave States. That is the 
meaning of the contract which our friends the Northern Democ- 
racy, have left us to fulfil; and I for one mean to fulfil it, 
because I will not violate the faith of the Government." 

He then proceeded to prove the proposition that all the 
territory of the United States was irrevocably fixed as free or 
slave, — part of it by the pledge of the Government in its pre- 
vious compromises and part of it by the laws of physical geog- 
raphy which would prevent slave labor from being profitably 
employed in such hilly and mountainous territory, as California 
and New Mexico. It was in this connection that out of defer- 
ence to the feelings of the South whom it might offend he 
declared that if " a proposition were now here to establish a 
government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a 
provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it." 
Such passages as this were calculated to astonish his constit- 
uents in New England, where they had not yet reached the 
conclusion that the whole of their country had been irrevocably 
partitioned between slavery and freedom. 

But when he turned from these things to criticise the whole 
North, because she did not sufficiently bestir herself in the 
business of hunting down and returning fugitive slaves to 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 219 

their former masters and " insisted that the South had been 
injured in this respect and the North had been too careless," 
the surprise of New England was still greater. It was only 
equalled when he proceeded a little further on to criticise the 
legislatures of the North for memorializing Congress on the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the States; 
and emphatically said he " should be unwilling to receive from 
the Legislature of Massachusetts any instruction to present res- 
olutions expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of 
slavery as it existed at that moment in the States." He went 
out of his way in the course of his argument to compliment 
Hillard, Sumner's former law-partner, for opposing such reso- 
lutions in the Senate of Massachusetts. 

His next attack was upon the Abolition Societies, " He did 
not think them useful. He thought their operations for the last 
twenty years had produced nothing good or valuable." 

These were strange things for Daniel Webster to say. His 
Boston — his ever faithful Boston — was ready to follow him 
even to this length. But the balance of the State would not. 
By a very large majority, the newspapers of the State, outside 
of Boston, condemned the speech. In Boston the Wliig papers 
were still loyal to him. It was estimated that only six out of 
seventy of the newspapers of New England approved the 
speech. About the same proportion of the people were against 
it. His admirers still seeking as of old, to show their loyalty 
to him, sought by circulating memorials, approving its doc- 
trines, to stem the popular tide against it. These memorials 
when presented to him, drew forth a series of letters in an- 
swer to them, that confirmed the people in their belief in his 
apostacy and in their judgment of the speech. Daniel Webster 
no longer represented Massachusetts. Proud as his position had 
been in the confidence of her people he had forfeited it. So 
far they would not go even with him. He doubtless felt all he 
said of the dangers of the further agitation of the slave question 
to the Union whose preservation had been the cherished object 
of his political life ; but he had grown old and somewhat out of 
touch with the public and this sentiment of fear for the 
Union, for which, in his childhood, he was taught his father 
had toiled, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolu- 
tionary war and which he shrunk from no danger and no hard- 
ship to serve, and to which he had dedicated so much of his own 
labor through so many years now drawing to their close, had 
grown out of its due proportion. The history of the years from 
1861 to 1865 has indeed proved how well his fears were 
founded. But fear for the Union had ceased to have its former 



320 ^^^^ Oi!' CHARLES SUMNER 

power with younger men now coming to control. They had 
made up their minds to heed it no longer, but to be true to their 
consciences and bear what came. They felt that too much had 
been yielded already to slavery and that the North could go no 
farther without a sacrifice of its manhood. 

The sands of Webster's term in the Senate were fast running 
out. The Legislature was to be elected this year that would 
choose his successor. With all the effort his friends were mak- 
ing to prepare the way for his re-election, he doubtless saw that 
his return would be doubtful and was glad to escape the trial 
by accepting the position of Secretary of State in Fillmore's 
cabinet, where his lately expressed opinions were not unpopular. 

The election came and Webster's worst fears were realized. 
The Whigs were defeated. The part Sumner took was much 
the same as in the two previous campaigns. The demand for 
him as a speaker continued to grow with his increasing fame. 
The Free-Soil and the Democratic parties united upon can- 
didates for the Legislature and for Congress, in all the counties 
of the State except Middlesex. The result was a victory for the 
combination, giving them a majority of ten over the Whigs in 
the Senate and a majority of fifty-four in the House. There 
was much rejoicing at the result. It was fairly regarded as a 
rejection of the Compromise and of Webster's speech. True, by 
retiring before the storm into Fillmore's cabinet, he was not a 
candidate, but Robert C. Winthrop had been appointed his suc- 
cessor by the Governor, at Mr. Webster's suggestion, and had 
entered the Senate in time to vote for the Compromise. The 
Free-Soilers at once took up the gage thus thrown down and 
freely insisted that he stood for all Webster did and that a vote 
against him was a vote against the Compromise and Webster 
and his views on the slavery question. It is certain that without 
the indignation aroused by the Compromise and by Webster's 
abandonment of his lifelong convictions upon the slavery 
question, the result would not have been possible. 

The consequences were not less far-reaching. Without the 
election resulting as it did, no way would probably ever have 
opened for Sumner to enter the Senate. He might have been 
known among scholars as an accomplished orator and he might 
have had a permanent place as the author of some historical 
work ; but this would have been far short of the fame he gained 
in his seat, in the Senate, by his efforts against slavery. What 
his loss might have been to the country is harder to measure. 
Whether the country was ripe for the changes he did so much 
to bring about and whether, if he had not, others would have 
reaped the same fields, may fairly be questioned. Others were 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 221 

there before him and still others came afterward to the Senate 
to represent the same cause; but faithful as they were and much 
as they accomplished, they lacked the fearless and aggressive 
leadership of Sumner. Without these qualities being developed 
in some one else, the same help of the Senate at least would 
have been wanting in the days of struggle. 

What attracted especial attention to Sumner and probably 
made him the choice of his party for Senator was his speech 
on " Our Immediate Anti-Slavery Duties " delivered at a Free- 
Soil meeting, held in Faneuil Hall a few days before the elec- 
tion of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Law had only recently been 
enacted and its provisions were imperfectly understood by the 
public. Sumner's speech was the first discussion of it before 
the people. It was an earnest and emphatic denunciation of the 
provisions of the law and it was Sumner's purpose by the speech 
to render it so odious and awaken such a feeling against it as to 
make its enforcement in Boston impossible. The speech 
touched a popular chord and aroused immense enthusiasm. 
The audience at its close proposed and gave, with a will, three 
cheers for Charles Sumner. It is more popular in its tone, 
more direct and emphatic in its purpose and is more spon- 
taneous, — smells less of preparation, than any of his other 
speeches. 

After expressing his approval of the combination of Free- 
Soilers with the Whigs to elect Mann and Fowler to Congress 
and with the Democrats, in the senatorial and legislative dis- 
tricts, to secure control of the State Legislature, he congratu- 
lated them on the admission of California as a State, with a 
constitution prohibiting slavery and the abolition of the slave 
trade in the District of Columbia. He then proceeded to 
discuss the Fugitive Slave law. He insisted that, denying the 
person apprehended a trial by jury, it was unconstitutional; 
that it was also unconstitutional because of the unprecedented 
and tyrannical powers it conferred upon the petty office of IT. 
S. commissioner, providing him a fee of Ten dollars for a 
conviction and only Five dollars for an acquittal of the 
prisoner, virtually offering a bribe to the judge. It permitted 
him to convict the prisoner and consign him to perpetual bond- 
age, upon mere ex parte affidavits, taken, perhaps, in a distant 
state,^ so as to deny the accused the right to face and cross- 
examine the witnesses produced against him. Sumner signifi- 
cantly said, that, while he was a commissioner, himself and 
might be called upon to sit in such a case, he could not forget 
that he was a man, although he was a commissioner, and that 
he would not dishonor the home of the Pilgrims and of the 



222 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Revolution by admitting, — nay, by believing that this bill 
would be executed in Massachusetts. He invoked an irresist- 
ible public opinion to prevent it and to prohibit any slave- 
hunter from ever setting his foot in the Commonwealth. 

It was a powerful arraignment of the law, into which the 
speaker threw his whole force. " And yet," he said, " in the 
face of these enormities of legislation, — of Territories organ- 
ized without the prohibition of slavery, and of this execrable 
Fugitive Slave Bill" (he refused to call it a Law) " — in the 
face also of slavery still sanctioned in the District of Columbia, 
of the Slave Trade between domestic ports, under the flag of 
the Union, and of the Slave Power still dominant over the 
National Government, we are told that the slavery Question is 
settled. Yes, settled, — settled, — that is the word. Nothing, sir, 
can be settled which is not right. Nothing can be settled which 
is contrary to the Divine Law. Nature and all the holy senti- 
ments of the heart repudiate any such false, seeming settle- 
ment." 

" Amidst the shifts and changes of party, our Duties remain, 
pointing the way to action. By no subtile compromise or ad- 
justment can men suspend the commandments of God. By no 
trick of managers, no hocus-pocus of politicians, no mush of 
concession, can we be released from this obedience. It is, then, 
in the light of duties that we are to find peace for our country 
and ourselves. Nor can any settlement promise peace which is 
not in harmony with these everlasting principles from which 
our duties spring." 

He demanded the immediate repeal of the Bill, the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, the prohibition of it in 
the Territories, the refusal to receive into the Union any new 
slave States, the abolition of the slave trade on the high seas 
and the exercise of all its constitutional powers by the National 
Government to relieve itself of its responsibility for slavery 
everywhere. And he insisted that the slave Power be over- 
turned and the National Government be put openly, actively 
and perpetually on the side of Freedom. He demanded that 
this Power, which in the game of office and legislation, had 
always won should now be suppressed. 

He emphatically said, as to the men to be chosen for office: 
" Admonished by experience, of timidity, irresolution and weak- 
ness in our public men, particularly at Washington, amidst the 
temptations of ambition and power, the friends of Freedom 
cannot lightly bestow their confidence. They can put trust only 
in men of tried character and inflexible will. Three things at 
least they must require: the first is backbone; the second is 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 223 

backbone; and the third is backbone. My language is homely; 
I hardly pardon myself for using it; but it expresses an idea 
which must not be forgotten. When I see a person of upright 
character and pure soul yielding to a temporizing policy, I 
cannot but say, He wants backbone. When I see a person talk- 
ing loudly against slavery in private, but hesitating in public, 
and failing in the time of trial, I say, He wants backbone. 
When I see a person who co-operated with anti-slavery men and 
then deserted them, I say, He wants backbone. When I see a 
person leaning upon the action of a political party and never 
venturing to think for himself, I say. He wants backbone. 
When I see a person always careful to be on the side of the 
majority and unwilling to appear in a minority, or, if need be, 
to stand alone, I say. He wants backbone. Wanting this they 
all want that courage, constancy, firmness, which are essential 
to the support of principle. Let no such man be trusted." 

" For myself, fellow-citizens, my own course is determined. 
The first political convention which I ever attended was in the 
spring of ]845, against the annexation of Texas. I was at the 
time a silent and passive Whig. I had never held political 
office, nor been a candidate for any. No question ever before 
drew me to any active political exertion. The strife of politics 
seemed to me ignoble. A desire to do what I could against 
slavery led me subsequently to attend two different State Con- 
ventions of Whigs, where I co-operated with eminent citizens 
in endeavor to arouse the party in Massachusetts to its anti- 
slavery duties. A conviction that the Whig party was disloyal 
to Freedom and an ardent aspiration to help the advancement 
of this great cause, has led me to leave that party and dedicate 
what of strength and ability I have to the present movement. 
To vindicate Freedom and oppose Slavery so far as I may con- 
stitutionally, — with earnestness, and yet I trust without un- 
kindness on my part, — is the object near my heart." 

At the time of the coalition between the Free-Soilers and the 
Democrats for the election of a Legislature, there was an un- 
derstanding between them that the Democrats, in case of suc- 
cess, should have the state officers to be elected and the Free- 
Soilers should have the Senatorship. No names were, however, 
decided on for the offices. The candidates were to be chosen 
later, by the respective parties. Earlier in the campaign several 
names were mentioned for the Senatorship, Stephen C. Phillips, 
Sumner, Charles Francis Adams. The first was this year, and 
had been in 1849, the unsuccessful candidate of his party for 
Governor, and felt that the honor should have come to him. 
After Sumner's uominatjon he wrote tc him pathetically, " I re- 



224 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

joice in the conviction that this, while it is the severest is the 
last of my political trials and though it is far from being such 
a close of a public career as is desirable I derive satisfaction 
from the thought that your race begins, where mine ends, and 
that a high destiny awaits you." It was the sad confession of 
failure in the career he had coveted and makes his seem like 
the lives of so many good men in politics, who have deserved a 
better fortune than came to them. Adams did not expect the 
Senatorship. He and Palfrey had not entered heartily into the 
movement for a combination with the Democrats, as Sumner 
had, and hence could not expect a favorable consideration. 
Adams, besides, had been prominent as a Whig before he joined 
the Free-Soil movement and was on that account still more 
unacceptable to the Democrats now. Sumner had never been 
much of a Whig and the little part he had taken in their coun- 
cils, was to advance the anti-slavery cause. He had never held 
an elective office. As the campaign progressed, the choice for 
Senator tended more and more to Sumner. After his Faneuil 
Hall speech, there was little mention of any one else. 

He had never regarded himself as a candidate. The first 
information he had, of a fixed purpose on the part of others to 
so consider him, came to him through a note, left at his door, 
by Seth Webb, Jr., the morning after the election, telling him 
the result and adding: "You are bound fox Washington this 
winter." Whittier had met him before this during the sum- 
mer, at Lynn, and one evening as they loitered by the sea, had 
predicted the success of the combination and that he would be 
the Senator. Sumner had told him that he did not think it pos- 
sible, that there were others better fitted for it, and besides, 
that he did not especially desire it, that his ambition lay in 
other fields. But Whittier urged him not to forbid the use of 
his name as a candidate, insisted upon his peculiar qualifica- 
tions and predicted a large future for him if elected. Years 
after, at the close of one of Sumner's fiercest struggles in the 
Senate, in a poem addressed " To C. S.," Whittier reminded 
him of this prediction. 

After the result of the election was fully known and the con- 
trol of the State was found to have come into the hands of the 
coalition, the trend of public opinion continued steadily 
towards Sumner for Senator, without any effort of his friends 
to work it up. There came to be a conviction, with the public, 
of his fitness to represent the general feeling of the State upon 
the new issues. " I think," one of the leaders wrote him, "you 
are nearer my ideal of a Free-Soiler of this time than anybody 
else; so does the whole Free-Soil heart of New England. And 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 225 

you may depend that the actual triumpli of just such a man as 
you are will give a heavier blow to the conspirators against 
Freedom and do more to fortify the general trust in the ulti- 
mate ascendency of uncompromising right, than that of any 
other living being. You cannot escape from your position." 

Charles Francis Adams wrote him from Washington, of the 
difficulties as he saw them, of an alliance with tlie Democrats, 
but added : " If our friends decide to risk themselves in that 
ship, I trust we may get a full consideration for the risk, and 
the only full consideration that we can receive is in securing 
your services in the Senate. If anything can be done with that 
iron and marble body, you may do it. You know how hopeless I 
think the task." 

Adams was at the time Sumner's most intimate political 
friend and, in replying Sumner wrote fully and frankly his 
feelings upon the Senatorship: "I appreciate your generosity 
and am proud of your confidence. I am not entirely insensible 
to the honor that post would confer, though I do not feel this 
strongly, for I have never been accustomed to think highly of 
political distinction. I feel that it would to a certain extent be 
a vindication of me against the attacks to which in common 
with you and others of our friends, I have been exposed. And I 
am especially touched by the idea of the sphere of usefulness 
in which it would place me. But notwithstanding these things 
I must say that I have not been able to bring myself to desire 
the post or even to be willing to take it. IMy dreams and visions 
are all in other directions. In the course of my life I have had 
many ; but none have been in the United States Senate. In 
taking that post I must renounce forever quiet and repose; my 
life henceforward would be in public affairs. I cannot eon- 
template this without repugnance. It would call upon me to 
forego those literary plans and aspirations which I have more 
at heart than any merely political success. Besides, even if I 
should incline to this new career, there are men in our ranks, 
my seniors and betters, to whom I defer sincerely and com- 
pletely. Mr. Phillips by various titles should be our candidate. 
If he should be unwilling to take the place, then we must look 
to you. In seeing you there I should have the truest satisfac- 
tion. You are the man to split open the solid rock of the 
United States Senate. I shrink unfeignedly from the work. 
For this I have never ' filled my mind.' " 

Sumner maintained this position to the close of the contest. 
It had no purpose of self-seeking with him. The cause was 
everything and he insisted even with his own prospect of the 
office before him, that the promotion of that must be kept 



226 ^J^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

steadily in view and whoever could best serve it, ought to have 
the place. He mistrusted his own fitness for it and he did not 
believe he should fill it, if he could not fill it best. He steadily 
refused to seek the place before his nomination by the caucus. 
Others must determine the question of his fitness. But after 
he had been chosen by the caucus and his success thus became 
welded to that of the cause, he met with his supporters several 
times in council and discussed plans with them and received 
and made suggestions and did what he could to promote their 
success. But when the contest was protracted and his success 
seemed doubtful, he urged them whenever they pleased, and 
without consulting him, to abandon the effort to elect him and 
unite on any one else whose prospects were better. His course 
showed the absence of self-seeking and the ideals with which he 
entered public life. The sequel will show that he maintained 
them to the close. 

The letters he received from anti-slavery friends in other 
States helped to confirm him in his determination to stand for 
the place. Chase and Giddings both wrote him from Washing- 
ton, insisting that he could not refuse to be a candidate and 
reminding him of the pleasure it would give the friends of Free- 
dom to see him in the Senate. John Jay wrote from New 
York : " I trust most sincerely you are to occupy the seat which 
Webster, in bygone days has filled so worthily, but where in 
the hour of temptation, he betrayed the Commonwealth which 
had trusted and honored him." Joshua Leavitt also wrote 
him from New York that he wished for his election both for 
his own sake and that of the cause, that it would be, " a worthy 
rebuke of cotton arrogance pronounced in earnest and sealed 
by action in the name of the good old Commonwealth." Other 
letters from other States also showed that Free-Soilers were 
disposed to treat his candidacy as the test of the strength of the 
opposition to the cringing attitude of Northern statesmen, to 
the South. Upon this issue Sumner was already firmly com- 
mitted. His dissent from the recent course of Webster in his 
seventh of March speech was a familiar illustration. 

At the election held in Massachusetts, in November, 1850, 
none on the State tickets were elected. The constitution then 
required the successful candidates to have a majority of all the 
votes cast, a mere plurality not being, as now, sufficient. In 
case of the failure of the people to elect, it devolved upon the 
Legislature to make a choice from the three candidates for the 
office who at the general election had received the highest num- 
ber of votes. The Free-Soilers and the Democrats having 
together a majority and having formed a coalition controlled 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 227 

the Legislature. It was agreed by them that the Democrats 
should have the Governor, State Treasurer and the United 
States Senator for the short term, — the balance of Webster's 
term, expiring March fourth, 1851, and that the Free-Soilers 
should have the United States Senator for the next full term. 
This gave the control of the State Government to the Demo- 
crats. It was left to the respective parties, to determine whom 
they would nominate for the offices assigned to them, the other 
party agreeing to unite in electing them. Henry Wilson, Free- 
Soiler, was chosen President of the Senate, and N. P. Banks, 
Democrat, Speaker of the House. 

At a caucus of the Free-Soilers held on January seventh, 
1851, Sumner was unanimously nominated for Senator for the 
long term. E. L. Keys, in communicating the result to him, 
wrote : " We have sworn to stand by you, to sink or swim with 
you, at all hazards. If you shall fail us in any respect, may God 
forgive you : — we never shall." The Daily Commonwealth, the 
organ of the Free-Soilers in speaking of the reason for this 
selection for Senator, said : " Mr. Sumner was selected as the 
candidate for the Senate, because, while true as the truest to 
Free-Soil principles, he was supposed to be less obnoxious than 
any other prominent Free-Soiler in the State to the Democratic 
party. He was never identified with any of the measures of the 
Whig party, except to sustain the sentiment, not of the Whig 
party alone, but of Massachusetts, against the annexation of 
Texas and the Mexican War." 

After the nominations were made, the Legislature proceeded 
to a choice, electing George S. Boutwell, Governor; Henry W. 
Cushman, Lieutenant-Governor and Eobert Rantoul, Senator 
for the short term, all Democrats, according to the previous 
agreement. On the fourteenth of January, the House voted 
for Senator, for the long term; whole number of votes, 381, 
necessary to a choice, 191, Charles Sumner 186, R. C. Win- 
throp 167, scattering 28, blanks 3. A second ballot was taken 
the same day, with the same result. Sumner had all the Free- 
Soil votes, 110, and 76 Democratic votes. The Free-Soilers 
insisted that they had taken the candidates of the Democrats 
without pledge and without question and that having selected 
their own candidate, they would never desert him. On Jan- 
uary twenty-second, the Senate elected Sumner : whole number 
of votes 38, necessary to a choice 20, for Charles Sumner 23, 
for Robert C. Winthrop 14, for Henry W. Bishop 1. The only 
question that now remained was, whether Sumner could get 
enough votes in the House to elect him. 

The anger of the Free-Soilers at their desertion by the House 



228 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Democrats was hardly concealed. They had carried out, to the 
letter, the arrangement on their part, and at the crucial point, 
they had been deserted by their Democratic allies. Some were 
for renouncing all farther communication with them and ar- 
ranging for an alliance with the Whigs to run the Democrats 
out, the next year; others were for the resignation of every 
fruit of the alliance thus far gathered by the Free-Soilers ; others 
still were for demanding of Governor Boutwell and his Demo- 
cratic colleagues the surrender of the offices they had acquired 
by the coalition. But the more sturdy leaders, with cooler 
heads and greater steadiness of purpose, like Henry Wilson, 
were determined not to break with their allies, but hold them to 
their promises and meanwhile insist that they had made choice 
of their candidate and would adhere to him, to the end, and 
would have no other. They knew that all their allies were not 
unfaithful and that those that were steadfast, ought not to be 
charged with the faults of the faithless. These counsels finally 
prevailed and for more than three months, they steadily refused 
to hear any proposition of surrender or compromise. They 
freely said and firmly insisted that Sumner was their first, last 
and only choice. 

The ballots were taken, sometimes more than one on the same 
day and sometimes with intervals of weeks. There were twenty- 
six in all, in the House. Sometimes Sumner was within one 
vote of an election and again he lacked as many as twelve. As 
the contest dragged its weary length along, both sides became 
tired of it, but neither would yield. The Free-Soilers felt that 
they were only asking their right and that having chosen their 
candidate, with due reference to his acceptability to the Demo- 
crats, they ought not to yield. The " Hunker " Democrats, or 
" Indomitables," as they were called, who had thus far refused 
to vote for Sumner, saw the folly of their position and that they 
ought not to have taken it, but did not like to recede. They 
offered to compromise on any other man and named Wilson. 
He promptly declined. 

The opposition among the Democrats was led by Caleb Gush- 
ing. He had been present at the caucus of his party and had 
voted to abide by the candidate for whom two-third-s would 
vote. Sumner having received more than that number, Gushing 
had then joined another caucus called to oppose his election on 
the ground that the choice of so pronounced an anti-slavery 
man would injure their standing with the national organization 
of their party. He called Sumner " a one-ideaed abolition 
agitator." Later in the canvass, when his followers faltered 
and Sumner's election seemed probable, he sought to escape 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 229 

from his position by asking of him a pledge tliat, if elected, he 
would not give undue prominence in the Senate, to the slavery- 
question. But Sumner declined to give any such pledge and 
also declined to have any communication with Gushing about 
politics. 

To a friend who asked him to write something he could use 
to quiet the charge that he was a Disunionist, Sumner wrote 
" You know well that I do not seek or desire any political office, 
that I am not voluntarily in my present position as candidate, 
and that prescribing to myself the rule of r?on-intervention, I 
have constantly declined doing anything to promote my elec- 
tion, and have refused pledges or explanations with regard to 
my future course beyond what are implied in my past life, my 
published speeches and my character." 

The Whig papers did everything they could to aid their party, 
in the Senate and House, to prevent his election. They hurled 
almost every epithet at the coalition of the Democrats and 
Free-Soilers and insisted that such a bargain and sale of the 
offices as had been made was an indictable offence and ought to 
be so punished. They published extracts from Sumner's 
speeches, prominently printed with hostile comments, almost 
daily. His speeches were charged with being " treasonable " and 
himself as being a " disunionist ". The Whigs believed that if 
an election could be prevented, by this Legislature, the next 
year would enable them to recover the State and choose a Sena- 
tor from their own party and part of their plan was to encour- 
age the House to hold out in its opposition to Sumner. Even 
the Democratic press was not friendly to him. The editor of 
the Times called upon him and asked him to modify some of 
his utterances on the slavery question, especially in "his recent 
Faneuil Hall speech, on "Our Immediate Anti-Slavery 
Duties." This he declined to do. The editor then asked him 
how he would like to have that speech printed, so that it might 
be read by the members of the Legislature. Sumner replied 
that nothing would give him greater pleasure. It accordingly 
appeared the next day in the Times, with this comment : 

"Mr. Sumner avows that what is called his Faneuil Hall 
speech contains his calm, deliberately formed, and well matured 
opinions — opinions by which his actions would be governed in 
the event of his election to the office of United States Senator. 
* * * We hope that every Democratic member of the Legis- 
lature will read the speech of the man for whom they are asked 
to vote, and then consider whether it is not their duty to vote 
for some other person." 

The Commonwealth, the Free-Soil organ, then printed it with 



230 J^I^^ OP CHARLES SUMNEB 

the defiant introduction : " We treat our readers to-day to the 
noble speech of Charles Sumner at that great " treasonable " 
meeting in Faneuil Hall. We are proud of it and of the man 
who made it. We give it as it was reported by Dr. Stone for 
the Traveller, and as it was copied into the Times. The 
apologists for slavery have heaped abuse on Mr. Sumner for 
this speech, and garbled it to serve their base purposes; but 
here it stands. Not a glorious word of it shall be rubbed out. 
We ask any member of the Legislature, whatever may be his 
politics or party, as a man, as a son of New England, and as an 
admirer of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Han- 
cock and Samuel Adams, to read this speech, and tell us how 
he can do a better thing than to vote for its author next Wed- 
nesday. Here you have the intellect and heart of a man — a 
man for the times, a man for Massachusetts ! " 

A little later, closing an appeal to the Free-Soilers to stand 
firmly by their choice, the Commonwealth said : " One pecul- 
iarity attending this election is, that it involves a true issue 
of principle. * * * The election of such a man as Charles Sum- 
ner in the room of such a man as Daniel Webster may be con- 
strued to be quite as much a complete disavowal of the late 
conduct of the one as a sanction of the system advocated by the 
other. Herein it is not difficult to trace the real causes as well 
of the extraordinary opposition on the one side as of the tena- 
cious adherence on the other." 

Sumner himself as the weeks rolled away and ballot after 
ballot was taken, with still no election, despaired of success 
and fearing that the Free-Soilers, by persisting in voting for 
him alone, as their candidate, and refusing to consider any 
proposition for a change, were emperilling their prospect of 
success and, perhaps, sacrificing all the fruits of their hard- 
earned victory, wrote to Wilson, February 22, 1851 : " Early in 
life I formed a determination never to hold any political office, 
and, of course, never to be a candidate for any. My hope was 
(might I so aspire!) to show, that, without its titles or emolu- 
ments, something might be done for the good of my fellow-men. 
Notwithstanding the strength of this determination often de- 
clared, I have, by the confidence of the friends of Freedom in 
Boston, more than once been pressed into the position of can- 
didate ; and now by the nomination of the Free-Soil and Demo- 
cratic members of the Legislature of Massachusetts, contrary to 
desires, specially made known to all, who communicated with 
me on the subject, I have been brought forward as their can- 
didate for the Senate of the United States." 

" Pardon me, if I say, that personal regrets mingle with 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 231 

gratitude for the honor done me. The office of Senator, though 
elevated and important, is to me less attractive than other and 
more quiet fields. Besides there are members of our party, to 
whom I gladly defer as representatives of the principles we 
have at heart." 

" I trust therefore that the friends of Freedom in the Legis- 
lature will not, on any ground of delicacy towards me hesitate 
to transfer their support to some other candidate, faithful to 
our cause. In this matter, I pray you, do not think of me. I 
have no political prospects which I desire to nurse. There is 
nothing in the political field which I covet. Abandon me, then, 
whenever you think best without notice or apology. The cause 
is everything ; I am nothing." 

Sumner asked Wilson to communicate the contents of this 
letter, in some proper way, to the Free-Soil members of the 
Legislature; which he did. But there was a feeling among 
them, that he better represented their cause than any one else, 
that he was really more acceptable to the Democrats than any 
one they could name and that to abandon him now would be 
half a confession of defeat. They also knew that, with his 
courage and power of speech, he was best qualified to stand for 
them in the Senate. They, therefore, resolved to persevere. 
Wilson and his colleagues could see that the " Indomitables " 
were hardly longer indomitable and that they were already 
seeking an escape from their position, that to hold on just a 
little longer must, in all probability, result in success. A clause, 
in the Bill of Eights of the constitution of Massachusetts, 
allowed the people to meet in mass convention and instruct 
their Representatives how to vote. In some instances this was 
done, the only occasion when this right was ever known to be 
exercised. This furnished some of the opposition a pretext for 
changing their votes. Others, seeing the risk to hold out to the 
close of the session and go before the people for re-election, with 
this record, after the pledges that had been made, the Free- 
Soilers being ready to unite with the Whigs to compass their 
defeat, were glad to escape from their position ; and so on one 
pretext or another the " Indomitables " found their way into 
the ranks. 

On April twenty-third, another ballot was taken, — the eight- 
eenth. The result was announced : whole number of votes 387, 
necessary to a choice 194; Charles Sumner 194, Robert C. Win- 
throp 167, scattering 26. On the announcement it appeared 
that Sumner was elected and, for a few minutes, the rejoicing 
i of his supporters was unbounded. But the correctness of the 
i count was challenged. One ballot that had Sumner's name 



232 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

printed upon it, had also the name of John Mills written upon 
it, in pencil, below his. The opposition insisted, that it should 
be counted for Mills and not thrown out as it had been, thus 
making one more vote necessary to a choice. Three other 
ballots were taken the same day, with the same result, Sum- 
ner each time lacking one vote of an election. The Free-Soilers 
were on tiptoe with excitement; they felt that success was at 
hand, and still they were afraid to rejoice. Success had seemed 
within their reach so often and yet it had so far eluded their 



grasp 



On April twenty-fourth another ballot was taken, without 
success. Sumner was two votes short. At this stage Sidney 
Bartlett, a Whig, moved that thereafter the voters be required 
to place their ballots in separate envelopes, that the envelopes 
should all be uniform, that where two votes should be found 
in the same envelope, if for the same person only one should 
be counted, if for different persons both should be thrown 
out. The members had previously been required to give their 
votes while passing in front of the Speaker's chair, their names 
being called and checked when they deposited their ballot. The 
purpose of the motion was thought to be to secure changes 
against Sumner; but it had the contrary effect. Being secret, 
it enabled some persons, without being known, to vote for 
Sumner. Perhaps they were Whigs, perhaps Indomitables, — ■ 
just who, was never known, though different claims have since 
been made for the distinction. The result announced was: 
whole number of votes 384, necessary to a choice 193, Charles 
Sumner 193, Eobert C. Winthrop, 166, scattering 25. Thus 
on that day nearly four months after the voting commenced 
and on the twenty-sixth ballot, in the House, Sumner was 
elected Senator. 

It was a notable election; a struggle for the seat of Daniel 
Webster, in the Senate, while he was still living, upon an issue 
which was already dividing the country, and drawn out by its 
closeness for weary weeks and months ! It attracted general 
attention. The dignity with . which Sumner bore himself 
through it and his constant refusal to make any promise or 
pledge or to modify his previously expressed opinions, though 
votes were offered in exchange, raised the people's estimate of 
him. To a Democrat who had called upon him for this purpose, 
he said : " If by walking across my office I could secure the 
Senatorship, I would not take a step." He was not to be 
swerved by self interest. This sentiment found a response 
among the plain people. It can fairly be concluded now tliat 
any other course would have lost him votes. His power was in 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 333 

his leadership of a conscience party. No sacrifice of principle 
for votes could have strengthened that leadership. So without 
sacrifice of conviction and without pledges other than were to 
be implied from his past life, Sumner came to the office of 
Senator. 

But it must not be inferred that he had been indifferent to 
the result. As we have seen he met his supporters in caucus 
more than once, and was at all times during the contest ready- 
to give them his advice. But his position was that the cause 
was everything; while he was nothing, — that no mere personal 
ambition should be allowed to interfere with its success, — that 
all should unite and work and, if need be, sacrifice for it. 

The result was received with various feelings. Most of the 
members of the House were tired and glad to have the long con- 
fer ended, many of the Free-Soilers were jubilant, seeing in 
this unusual victory an earnest of something to be done to check 
the onward march of Slavery; others still were questioning. 
It was a new departure in the politics of Massachusetts. 
Would it bring the same honor and renown to the Common- 
wealth that Webster and his party had done? Time showed. 
It marked the closing of the period, when love of the Union and 
compromises for its support predominated under the great 
leadership of Webster; and it marked the beginning of the 
period of the Civil War when men believed that compromise 
could be carried too far — that Union and Universal Freedom 
ought to be made to stand together. With the heat of battle, 
they finally welded these two principles into constitutional law. 

In the evening a ratification meeting was held in State Street 
at which speeches were made by Henry Wilson, Joseph Lyman 
and Thomas Russell. After the meeting the crowd marched 
to Sumner's house, but he had left the city. It then proceeded 
to the home of Charles Francis Adams who addressed them. 
They afterwards went in a body to the home of R. H. Dana Jr. 
who being absent, was represented by his father. He said that 
he had " kept his bed until noon through illness ; but on learn- 
ing the news of the election of Mr. Sumner he suddenly be- 
came better." 

Sumner first heard the news, while dining at the house of 
I Charles Francis Adams, in Mt. Vernon Street within a minute's 
, walk of the State House. He was very intimate with the family 
; and dined with them, on an average as often as once a week. 
' He had been there the day before, when his election was an- 
\ nounced and the ballot afterwards being corrected, left him one 
[l short of a majority. Knowing that another ballot would be 
taken on the twenty-fourth, and that the result must be very 



334 L^PE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

close, he came there again, so that he with Adams might 
promptly hear the result. A little son of Mr. Adams' brought 
them the news, about three o'clock in the afternoon, while they 
were dining; and another son, then about sixteen years of age, 
seated beside Mr. Sumner at the table was the first to con- 
gratulate him. He did not seem at all elated, or show any sign 
of rejoicing. In a few minutes a number of friends, learning 
he was there called to offer their congratulations and were re- 
ceived in the library. A proposition to have a public demon- 
stration, at his own home in the evening, he put aside, being 
unwilling that a victory for a cause should assume any ap- 
pearance of a personal triumph. 

He soon left the house and the city, going to Longfellow's 
home in Cambridge where he passed the evening, with him and 
Palfrey and Lowell, and spent the night, away from the excite- 
ment caused by his election. In his diary of that day, Long- 
fellow wrote of Sumner : " He is no more elated by his success 
than he has been depressed by the failure heretofore and evi- 
dently does not desire the office." Sumner, in fact, mistrusted 
his ability to meet the expectations of his friends and to dis- 
charge the duties of the office, according to his own ideal. Wliat 
if he should fail, after all the hopes that had been held out by 
his party to the people ! To a young friend who said to him ; 
" This is too good ; I fear you will die before taking your seat; " 
Sumner thoughtfully replied, " Perhaps that will be the best 
thing for me." 

To John Bigelow, then associated with Bryant on the New 
York Evening Post, he wrote : " Every heart knoweth its own 
secret, and mine has never been in the Senate of the United 
States, nor is it there yet. Most painfully do I feel my inability 
to meet the importance which has been given to this election 
and the expectation of enthusiastic friends, but more than this, 
I am impressed by the thought that I now embark on a career, 
which promises to last for six years, if not indefinitely, and 
which takes from me all opportunity of study and meditation 
to which I had hoped to devote myself. I do not wish to be a 
politician." 

But his friends refused to participate in his misgivings. The 
newspapers in commenting upon his election, recognized the 
independence of his position in the Senate, unfettered as he 
would be by pledges and promises. The London Times, in a 
leader, interpreted the election of Sumner, " the most active 
and able representative " of the cause of the Free-Soilers, as 
showing the strength of feeling in Massachusetts against the 
Fugitive Slave Law and as an emphatic declaration that the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 235 

law at least in its existing form, was not to remain unassailed. 
Congratulations came to him from every side, — from Bryant, 
Bigelow, Epes Sargent and Neal Dow; from Chase, Giddings, 
Jay and Burritt. John G. Whittier wrote : " I rejoice that 
unpledged, free and without a single concession or compromise 
thou art enabled to take thy place in the Senate. I never knew 
such a feeling of real heart pleasure and satisfaction as is mani- 
fested by all except inveterate Hunkers in view of thy election. 
The whole country is electrified by it. Sick abed, I heard the 
guns, Quaker as I am, with real satisfaction." John Van Buren 
wrote : " I was as much pleased with seeing your frank as I was 
with the inside of your note. Independent of the fact that it 
proves your election to the United States Senate, the inscrip- 
tion *" Free. Charles Sumner,' seems to me mighty pretty read- 
ing." 

Sumner gratefully acknowledged the assistance of his 
friends. Henry Wilson especially had been unwearied in his 
efforts. He was chiefly instrumental in bringing about a 
coalition with the Democrats to secure the election of members 
of the Senate and House, and after the election he had been no 
less diligent in holding the Democrats to their pledges of sup- 
port. He possessed large capacity for organization and a cool 
head as well as an honest heart. In the darkest days of the 
struggle he never despaired. When others were ready to give 
up and adopt measures to punish the recalcitrant Democrats, 
his better judgment restrained them. When thoughts of an- 
other candidate and of a compromise were suggested, his 
warning voice said : " No, Sumner is our candidate; his choice, 
was our right, and we will have no other." He was tireless in 
his efforts and his judgment was good. In this campaign he 
developed the ability and the traits of leadership which five 
years later made him Sumner's colleague in the Senate. Writ- 
ing to him, on the day after the election, from Craigie House, 
Sumner gratefully said : " To your ability, energy and fidelity, 
our cause owes its present success. For weal or woe, you must 
take the responsibility of having placed me in the Senate of 
the United States." And in the same letter he placed it upon 
record, that all Wilson did was done without the suggestion of 
any selfish consideration and without any thought of personal 
advancement. 

Having received from the Secretary of the Commonwealth 
his certificate of election, Sumner on the fourteenth day of May, 
addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives of Mass- 
achusetts a formal letter of acceptance of the office. In it he 
recognized that he owed his first duty to the cause of Liberty; 



236 J^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

but as he had, during the contest been charged with being a Dis- 
unionist and a Sectionalist, he took this occasion to correct the 
false impression that had been sought to be given out by his op- 
ponents. He declared liimseif in favor of the Union and against 
any effort to destroy it and as opposed to all sectionalism 
whether of the North to carry Freedom into the Slave States, or 
of the South to carry the evils of slavery into the Free States or 
the sectional domination of slavery over the National Govern- 
ment. He declared his belief in a Union so firm that no part 
could be permanently lost from its well-compacted whole and 
that it could be separable only by a crash which would destroy 
the whole. He bespoke the candid judgment of his constituents 
to promote the general welfare, assuring them that true politics 
and right which are a law alike to individuals and communities 
are the same for the lowly and the great. 

Referring more directly to the office, he said : " The trust 
conferred on me is one of the most weighty which a citizen can 
receive. It concerns the grandest interests of our own Com- 
monwealth, and also of the Union in which we are an indissol- 
uable link. Like every post of eminent duty, it is a post of 
eminent honor. A personal ambition, such as I cannot con- 
fess, might be satisfied to possess it. But when I think what 
it requires, I am obliged to say that its honors are all eclipsed 
by its duties." 

" Your appointment finds me in a private station, with which 
I am entirely content. For the first time in my life I am called 
to political office. With none of the experience possessed by 
others to smooth the way of labor, I might well hesitate. But 
I am cheered by the generous confidence which, throughout a 
lengthened contest, persevered in sustaining me, and by the 
conviction, that, amidst all seeming differences of party, the 
sentiments of which I am the known advocate, and which led 
to my original selection as a candidate, are dear to the hearts 
of the people throughout this Commonwealth. I derive, also, 
a most grateful consciousness of personal independence from the 
circumstance, which I deem it frank and proper thus pub- 
licly to disclose and place on record, that this office comes to 
me unsought and undesired. 

" Acknowledging the right of my country to the services of 
her sons wherever she chooses to place them and with a heart 
full of gratitude that a sacred cause is permitted to triumph 
through me, I now accept the post of Senator." 



i 



CHAPTER XIX 

REGRETS AT LEAVING BOSTON — FIRST DAYS AT WASHINGTON AND 
IN THE SENATE — WELCOME TO KOSSUTH — AID TO RAIL- 
ROADS IN IOWA — EULOGY ON RANTOUL — ANXIETY TO BE 

HEARD ON SLAVERY — SECURES A HEARING THE SPEECH, 

" FREEDOM, NATIONAL ; SLAVERY, SECTIONAL " — HIS 

BROTHER GEORGE RETURNS FROM EUROPE SUMNER's 

VACATION — TAKES NO PART IN CAMPAIGN 

In the campaign of 1851, the same coalition was made be- 
tween the Free-Soilers and Democrats, as had been made the 
previous year and with similar results. The Legislature, both 
House and Senate, were again in the control of the coalitions, 
but the majorities were not so large as they had been the prev- 
ious year. Some congressional districts were lost, where the 
coalition had before elected their candidates. The first use 
Sumner made of his frank was in distributing documents, to 
promote the re-election of John G. Palfrey to Congress. But 
Palfrey was defeated. Sumner did not do so much speaking 
as he had done the previous year. He was busy making prep- 
aration for his removal to Washington, by putting his affairs 
at home in such shape that they would not suffer by his ab- 
sence. Besides, he did not wish to have another contest with 
Winthrop who was still taking part in politics though defeated 
for election to the Senate. Sumner entertained for him per- 
sonally a kindly feeling and sincerely regretted his political 
course. To carry a personal controversy further, after the 
events of the last year, might seem like seeking a quarrel for its 
own sake, than which nothing could have been farther from 
Sumner. 

He wished that Winthrop might still be induced to join the 
anti-slavery movement, where his ability and his popularity 
would have found a wide field for usefulness. But this was 
destined never to be. Winthrop had gone too far now, to be 
willing to retrace his steps, he had been prominent as a Whig 
and his opinions had been given such wide publication that they 
could only be retracted with some sacrifice of personal pride; 
besides others had the places he coveted. To join the new 
party would seem like commencing his political life over again. 
It was a source of regret, to his friends, that he was not induced 
337 



238 ^^^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to make the sacrifice so that a new and, perhaps, larger career 
might have been opened to him. Sumner did not forget his 
many good qualities. He hoped that friendly feelings would 
yet prevail between them. He was always disposed to look 
charitably on his political antagonists and, while tenacious of 
his convictions, he did not believe that they should interfere 
with private friendships. And besides the weight of social 
ostracism, he was often made by others to feel, during his 
long career, made him careful not to do the same injustice 
to others. 

He went to Washington the week before Congress opened. 
In leaving Boston there were three separations he felt keenly, 
— from his mother and sister at the old home, from the Long- 
fellows at Cambridge and from the Howes, at the Blind 
Asylum. Many were the happy hours he had passed in these 
quiet places, where love and sympathy had never failed him. 
When others had insisted on misconstruing his efforts against 
slavery, had snubbed him in public, and privately closed their 
doors against him, he always found these places of retreat open. 
His quiet home, with the books he loved, his frequent evenings 
with the Howes, his Sunday dinners at Longfellow's, with the 
congenial talk and companionship, the joyful part of his 
bachelor life, — these things had formed ties whose strength he 
did not appreciate, until they were about to be broken. The 
thought of the separation made him sad. 

From New York he wrote to Howe : " Three times yesterday 
I wept like a child, — I could not help it; first in parting with 
Longfellow, next in parting with you, and lastly as I left my 
mother and sister. I stand now on the edge of a great change. 
In the vicissitudes of life I cannot see the future; but I know 
that I now move away from those who have been more than 
brothers to me. My soul is wrung and my eyes are bleared with 
tears. God bless you ever and ever, my noble, well-tried, and 
eternally dear friend ! " 

To Longfellow he wrote : " I could not speak to you as we 
parted, my soul was too full; only tears would flow. Your 
friendship and dear Fanny's have been among my few treas- 
ures, like gold unchanging. For myself I see with painful 
vividness the vicissitudes and enthrallments of the future, and 
feel that we shall never more know each other as in times past. 
Those calm days and nights of overflowing communion are 
gone. Thinking of them and of what I lose I become a child 
again. From a grateful heart I now thank you for your true 
and constant friendship. Whatever may be in store for me, so 
much at least is secure ; and the memory of you and Fanny will 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 239 

be to me a precious fountain. God bless you both, ever dear 
friends, faithful and good ! Be happy and think kindly of me." 

A little later Longfellow answered : " Your farewell note 
came safe and sad; and on Sunday no well-known footsteps in 
the hall, nor sound of cane laid upon the table. We ate our 
dinner somewhat silently by ourselves, and talked of you far 
off, looking at your empty chair." 

One source of Sumner's feeling of loneliness at parting from 
these home friends was the untried future that stretched out 
before him and the dread of his responsibilities. Daniel Web- 
sters, from his place in the Senate, had occupied a large meas- 
ure of public attention. His massive eloquence would have 
attracted attention anywhere. And yet Sumner had succeeded 
after a short interval, to his place, by a contest, in which Web- 
ster and his friends were defeated. Naturally Sumner would 
be contrasted with him. Every effort he was to put forth 
for the cause he represented must be made before an audience 
utterly unsympathetic, Tlie leader of the New England anti- 
slavery men could hope for no sympathy from the United 
States Senate in his effort for this cause. And yet the cause 
was the very one he was commissioned to represent. No one 
had blazed the way for him. John Quincy Adams and Joshua 
E. Giddings had been pioneers in that work in the House, but 
it may fairly be said there was none before Sumner in the 
Senate. 

When he took his seat, on the first day of December, 1851, 
the only two Free-Soilers in the Senate were Hale of New 
Hampshire and Chase of Ohio, the former elected by a 
coalition of Free-Soilers with Whigs, and the latter by a coali- 
tion of Free-Soilers with Democrats. Neither of them had 
been there long, — Hale, four years; Chase, but two. Though 
both were able and earnest men, neither had acquired distinc- 
tion for aggressive leadership of the anti-slavery cause in the 
Senate. Seward was also there, but he still maintained his 
affiliation with the Whigs. Wade entered the Senate the same 
day as Sumner. The cause was still in need of an earnest, 
aggressive man, of singleness of purpose, who could attract 
national attention and from his place in the Senate awaken 
the North to a realization of the enormities of slavery 
and its aggressions and the dangers that lay in them to the 
country. 

It is a singular fact that as he entered upon his duties, Mr. 
Benton said to him : " You have come upon the stage too late. 
Sir; all our great men have passed away. Mr. Calhoun and 
Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster are gone. Not only have the great 



240 L,^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

men passed away, but the great issues too, raised from our form 
of government, and of deepest interest to its founders and their 
immediate descendants, have been settled also. The last of 
these was the National Bank, and that has been overthrown 
forever. Nothing is left you, sir, but puny sectional questions 
and petty strifes about slavery and fugitive slave laws involving 
no national interests." 

What a strange prediction this was, in the light of subsequent 
history ! And yet, perhaps, it was not a strange prediction for 
one to make then, who had passed the thirty years prior in the 
public service ! Calhoun was dead. He . had died the year 
previous, in Washington, at his post as Senator. Webster had 
resigned, a few months before to enter Fillmore's cabinet, an 
old man worn out, destined to die a year later. Clay was in his 
seat, in the Senate for the last time, the day Sumner entered. 

They were the giants of their day. All gone ! The National 
issues of the formative period of the Government over which 
they had struggled, were many of them settled, — Nullification, 
the constitutionality of a Tariff and of Internal Improvements. 
The national boundaries had been defined and new territory 
had been acquired. But some of the issues over which they had 
struggled and now considered settled, we know were far from 
it, — the perpetuity of slavery, the right of Secession, the indis- 
solubility of the Union. How such issues as the Bank, the 
Tariff and Internal Improvements dwarf in comparison with 
them. The work of these statesmen should not be belittled. 
They fostered, maintained and strengthened the Government 
until it learned its own powers and a great majority of its peo- 
ple appreciated its blessings. But the work of the statesmen of 
the succeeding period, — the period commencing with the en- 
trance of Sumner and his anti-slavery co-laborers upon public 
life, — the period of the Rebellion, of Emancipation and Recon- 
struction — was destined to be, beyond all comparison, the most 
eventful in our history. And when Clay, the " great compro- 
miser " with slavery went out of the Senate, on that day another, 
greater than he, came in, — a man who knew no compromise 
with slavery, who always fought his battles against it to a finish, 
and was always for a clean victory or a defeat. 

Sumner was conducted before the presiding officer, to take 
the oath of office by Lewis Cass, his oldest personal acquaint- 
ance among the Senators. Their friendship extended back to 
the days in Paris, when they had prepared for publication a 
discussion of the question of our North Eastern Boundary, 
then in dispute with England. By a curious chance, Sumner 
chose for his seat on the floor of the Senate, the chair just 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 241 

made vacant by Jefferson Davis, when he entered Fillmore's 
cabinet. It was beside the seat of Chase, which fact led to its 
selection, and was immediately behind the seat of Butler of 
South Carolina, one of the mofft extreme apologists of slavery. 
It was on the Democratic side of the floor; there was no anti- 
slavery side then, and Sumner had been elected, partly ly 
Democratic votes. In the distribution of appointments to 
committees, he was placed at the foot of two unimportant ones, 
— the committee on Revolutionary Claims and the committee 
on Roads and Canals. 

His social reception at Washington was more cordial than he 
expected. His familiarity all his life, with intellectual people, 
his friendly manner and fondness for conversation, united with 
a certain novelty in his position in the Senate and a reputation 
for oratory that preceeded him, assisted in opening a way for 
him. He was already acquainted with Chase and during the 
remaining four years of his term they were intimate. He soon 
became intimate with the New York Senators, Seward and 
Fish, and their families. Even the Southern Senators, to his 
surprise met him cordially, and with one of them, at least, 
Soule, of Louisiana, whom he regarded as the most brilliant 
man in the Senate, eloquent even in a language he could not 
speak distinctly, he entered upon a sincere and lasting friend- 
ship. He also became intimate at the French, English and 
Spanish embassies. His ability to speak French and his ac- 
quaintance with the wife of the Spanish Ambassador, a Boston 
lady, his large acquaintance in Europe, especially in England, 
and his recollection of days of travel, naturally attracted him 
to these houses. Since his return from Europe, few foreigners 
of distinction had come to Boston, from England, who did not 
bring letters to him ; and after he became a Senator fewer still 
came to Washington without meeting him. 

News of his social success in Washington was not long in 
reaching Boston, where the eyes of many were upon him. 
There was great fear with some, that the attractions of society 
and the blandishments of the Southern members would seduce 
him from the settled purpose of his election. Slavery had been 
so resourceful, that Northern men had grown distrustful of the 
ability of their representatives to withstand it. There was 
some foundation for this distrust and there was much of it 
without foundation. The influence of the South in Washington 
society was greater than it should have been ; but people thought 
it greater than it was. There were good men, Giddings, 
Chase, Hale and their circle of friends over whom it had 
no power. Sumner was well on his guard for it. He knew the 



242 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

work he was sent to do, but he thought he could succeed better 
by having a social standing at the Capitol, so that he might 
have an opportunity to influence men by private conversation. 
He felt he could not acquire this acquaintance and confidence, 
by at once and without hesitation pitching into the favorite 
opinions of his associates and thereby, perhaps, making it im- 
possible for him ever to acquire position among them. He 
preferred to gain their good opinion first. 

Sumner was at this time in the prime of manhood. He was 
forty years of age. The unshapeliness and slenderness of 
his youthful days had disappeared and his frame had filled out 
broadly so as to make him tower like a tribune among men. 
He had not yet acquired the weight he did in later life. His 
wealth of dark brown hair, not even tinged with gray, but worn 
according to the fashion of the time, a little long, hung full 
about his forehead. His clear blue eyes and open countenance 
showed the enthusiasm of young manhood. His mouth and 
nose were large but well shaped and his features clean cut, 
showing lines of intelligence, noble aspirations and thoughtful, 
student-life, not yet graven by age into furrows. To fill out a 
face inclined to be long, he wore, as he did most of his life, 
short side-whiskers. His face was otherwise smoothly shaved. 
He always dressed in the fashion, but with good taste, and was 
scrupulously clean. He was withal noticeably fine looking, 
bearing with him the marks of a well-bred, temperate, intel- 
lectual man, absorbed in the purpose of his life, approaching 
the earnestness of an enthusiast. His friendly smile, easily 
provoked, seeming to invite others, his hearty laugh, his 
naturalness, his friendly greeting won him acquaintances in 
many directions. A leader of the New England Abolitionists, 
with some reputation for eloquence sent to Washington to 
represent an apparently hopeless cause, he was the most inter- 
esting new figure in the Senate. 

There was from the first, among his colleagues a good deal 
of curiosity to hear him; and the opportunity was not long 
wanting. The Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, had escaped 
from Poland into Turkey and was there in friendly exile. The 
President was authorized by Congress, at its previous session 
to employ a ship of war to receive him and his fellow exiles 
and convey them to the United States. One of the best ships 
of the Navy, the Mississippi, was detailed for this service. On 
the homeward voyage she touched in England, where for a few 
weeks, by brilliant speeches, Kossuth invoked the aid of her 
people for his oppressed country, and created a great en- 
thusiasm. The vessel was soon to arrive in New York and the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 243 

question arose what form his welcome should take. Mr. Web- 
ster, the Secretary of State, thought that having been invited 
and brought, as the guest of the nation, some Congressional 
recognition of the event would be proper. Following this sug- 
gestion, a resolution had been introduced on the first day of the 
session, by Foote of Mississippi providing for his reception and 
entertainment; but some objection being made to its form, it 
was withdrawn. On December eighth, Mr. Seward introduced 
a resolution that " Congress, in the name and on behalf of the 
people of the United States, give to Louis Kossuth a cordial 
welcome, to the Capitol and to the country." An amendment 
was moved to this resolution, that " while welcoming Kossuth 
and his associates, it was due to candor to declare that it was 
not the purpose of Congress to depart from the settled policy, 
which forbids all interference with the domestic concerns of 
other nations." 

It was on this resolution and amendment that Sumner arose 
to speak on December ninth, but it being late in the day, he 
gave way to a motion to adjourn. The consideration of the 
resolution was resumed the next day and Sumner spoke. After 
recognizing the importance of the resolution as calculated to 
create, combine and inspire sentiments for Freedom both in our 
own and foreign countries, he said he was ready to vote for it, 
without the amendment. He argued that we could not afford 
to do things by halves, that the invitation having in the name 
of Freedom, been extended to Kossuth and the hearts of the 
people, being open to receive him, Congress could not now turn 
its back upon him. He insisted it was a duty they owed, not 
only to the last Congress, but to their guest himself. He 
referred to the great and brilliant service of Kossuth for the 
cause of Freedom and Equality, and said he saw " in him more 
than in any other living man the power which may be exerted 
by a single, earnest, honest soul in a noble cause." He could 
find nothing in the law of nations, which forbade us to welcome 
an exile to freedom ; he would seek no precedent for that. 

But while he recognized the greatness of the guest, the charm 
of his eloquence and the popularity of his cause, he could agree 
in his behalf, to no belligerent intervention by our nation in the 
affairs of Europe. He insisted that such a thing was neither, 
upon the face of the resolution proposed by Seward, nor in any 
way to be implied, from anything contained in its terms. He 
wished to be distinctly understood as favoring no such intervene, 
tion. While he inculcated no " frigid isolation " of ourselves, — = 
while he hoped that we would never close our ears to the 
cry of distress and that we would never ce^se to gwell 



244 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

witli indignation at the oppression of tyranny, — while he 
would offer sympathy to all, in every land, who struggled 
for human rights, yet, nevertheless, against every pressure, 
against all popular approaches, against all solicitations, against 
all blandishments, he would upliold, with steady hand, the 
peaceful neutrality of the Nation. And still, with these con- 
victions he could not join, in the amendment, proposing a 
declaration of non-intervention, in the resolution. To an act 
of courtesy and welcome, it attached a most ungracious con- 
dition. " A generous hospitality will not make terms or condi- 
tions with a guest ! " he exclaimed, " and," he added, " such 
hospitality, I trust. Congress will tender to Louis Kossuth." 

The proposed amendment was lost, but the resolution offered 
by Seward, welcoming Kossuth to the capital and the country, 
in the name of the people, was passed, by a vote of thirty-three 
to six, in the Senate, was concurred in by the House, and ap- 
proved by the President. 

Kossuth became the Nation's guest and was welcomed by 
Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, at New York, in a 
notable speech. He visited Washington and made a tour of the 
country, speaking in the principal cities. Sumner met him 
repeatedly in Washington. The charm of the man and the 
success of his eloquence was greater than ever before. He was 
received everywhere with unbounded enthusiasm and aroused 
for his oppressed and dismembered country, the deepest sym- 
pathy. The enthusiasm for his cause, was so sweeping that it 
threatened for a time to become a national issue, whether our 
Nation should interfere or not. A charm still gathers about 
his name ; and his visit is remembered, as one of the brighest 
episodes in our history, and one of the most impressive in the 
history of eloquence. But after the first wave of excitement 
had passed, the sober second thought of the people prevailed. 
The country lost none of its admiration for Kossuth or of its 
sympathy for his unfortunate country, but it was seen that the 
armed intervention he advocated would not be granted by our 
people and would probably be unavailing if it were. , 

Sumner had struck the true note, in his speech, the one that 
finally prevailed, welcome without stint, to a noble and eloquent 
man, admiration for his work, sympathy for struggling human- 
ity everywhere, — but no belligerent intervention, by our nation, 
in the tangled web of European politics. His speech was a 
clean cut expression of national duty and a generous tribute to 
a pure patriot and a good man ; but it in no way committed us 
to a cause that was already hopeless. Just at the beginning of 
his career, it was well-timed for Sumner ; and it was well-timed 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 245 

for the country. It helped him in the estimation of his fellow 
Senators, to whom he had been represented as an agitator and 
an enthusiast, a man of one idea. It showed that he was not 
as represented, that on one subject at least, he was careful, con- 
servative and sensible. Thoughtful men generally approved 
his course. It satisfied the people of Massachusetts, especially 
of Boston, always of a strongly conservative tendency; and it 
helped to correct the false impression of Sumner which many 
of tlie newspapers of the Wliig party had sought to convey 
during the contest for the Senatorship. 

Rufus Choate, one of his Whig opponents, in acknowledging 
the receipt of a copy of the speech, in a characteristic letter 
wrote : " I thank you for the copy of your beautiful speech, and 
for the making of it. All men say it was a successful one, par- 
liamentarily expressing it; and I am sure it is sound and safe, 
steering skilfully between cold-shoulder ism and inhospitality, 
on the one side and the splendid folly and wickedness of co- 
operation, on the other. Cover the Magyar with flowers, lave 
him with perfumes, serenade him with eloquence, and let him 
go home alone, — if he will not live here. Such is all that is 
permitted to wise states, aspiring to the ' True Grandeur.' 

" I wish to Heaven you would write to me de rebus Con- 
gressus. How does the Senate strike you ? The best place this 
day on earth for reasoned and thoughtful, yet stimulant public 
speech. Think of that. Most truly yours, — in the Union. — " 

But there were voices of dissent from Sumner's speech, — 
not many, it is true, and not loud. It is a curious fact, that 
some of them came from his closest, friends. They did not 
agree with his views of non-intervention. Wilson was one of 
them and Howe was another. It would hardly be expected that 
one of the revolutionary tendencies of Howe, would have much 
fear of granting the assistance sought by Kossuth. When a 
young man he had found his way to Greece to take part in her 
revolution and again he went to Paris, where in active sym- 
pathy with Lafayette, he took part in the convulsions of the 
city against Charles the Tenth. The consequences which might 
follow such a step as intervention by our country in the affairs 
of Hungary would have little terror for him. His sympathy 
for human suffering and for the oppressed everywhere, carried 
him readily over questions of state policy. But he was loyal to 
Sumner, He wrote him chidingly, yet pleasantly, saying he 
would not have believed, that one who had gone so fearlessly 
into the Broad Street riot, where they had first become ac- 
quainted, would now hesitate to lend his vote and his voice to 
help this oppressed people. Wilson agreed with him. He wel- 



246 LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNEH 

corned Kossuth to Boston and entered heartily into his mission. 
Other Free-Soilers agreed with Howe and Wilson. But the 
excitement was short-lived ; and within a few months serious 
thought of intervention disappeared. 

Sumner continued faithful in his attendance upon the ses- 
sions of the Senate, watching its proceedings closely and ex- 
tending his acquaintance, but he did not take much part in the 
public work. He did not think it would be becoming in him 
to do so and such part as he did take he wished to be entirely 
distinct from the slavery question. But he was determined that 
the session should not close without being heard upon it. He 
wanted to make sure of his ground, to learn the rules of pro- 
ceeding and debate and when he did speak deliver one hard 
telling blow. 

On January twenty-seventh, 1852, he spoke upon a bill, 
under consideration in the Senate, granting public land to the 
State of Iowa in aid of the construction of railroads within 
that State. He had made some study of the subject, which led 
him to believe that such aid should be granted. He advanced 
the argument that the National Government owed a debt to 
the States having this land within their borders. There were 
many million acres of it, and all exempt from taxation. The 
burden of protecting and improving it was a tax upon the 
States, where it happened to lie. New people moved into the 
State, crime had to be suppressed; the school enumeration in- 
creased and new schoolhouses had to be built ; canals and roads 
were opened and the taxable property had to pay for them. 
Such things all gave permanent improvement to the country 
and enhanced the value of all the adjacent land. But it laid a 
great burden upon the owners of private property. Sumner 
estimated that there had been, up to January first, IS-iO ; 289,- 
961,954 acres of the public land proclaimed for sale, that is, 
surveyed and placed upon the market, and that it had remained 
upon the market, for an average of twenty-five years, before it 
was actually sold. All this time it was receiving protection 
and development, but paying nothing. He placed the actual 
cost of this protection, at the low rate of one cent per acre each 
year, while it probably should have been two or three cents a 
year. But at this low rate of one cent, it amounted in twenty- 
five years to $72,490,475, an immense sum, clearly illustrating 
the amount the National Government was actually debtor to 
the States which embraced the land. He argued that tardy 
justice required, when opportunity presented, as it did then, 
ithat the Nation make reasonable grants of the land, in aid 
of these improvements. " Coming from different States and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 247 

opposite sections we are all," he said, " Senators of the Union, 
and our constant duty is without fear or favor to introduce into 
the national legislature the principle of justice." 

He could see no more appropriate object of such a grant 
than the building of good roads. " It would be ditticult to 
exaggerate the influence of roads as means of civilization," he 
said. " Where roads are not civilization cannot be ; and civil- 
ization advances as roads are extended. By roads, religion and 
knowledge are diffused ; intercourse of all kinds is promoted, — 
producer, manufacturer and consumer are all brought nearer 
together, — commerce is quickened, — markets are created, — 
property, wherever touched by these lines, as by a magic rod, 
is changed into new values, — and the great current of travel, 
like that stream of classic fable or one of the great rivers in 
our own California, hurries in a channel of golden sand. The 
roads together with the laws of ancient Eome, are now better 
remembered than her victories. The Flaminian and Appian 
ways, once trod by such great destinies, still remain as benefi- 
cent representatives of ancient grandeur. Under God the 
roads and the schoolmaster are two chief agents of human im- 
provement. The education begun by the schoolmaster is ex- 
panded, liberalized and completed by intercourse with the 
world ; and this intercourse finds new opportunities and in- 
ducements in every road that is built." 

The argument of Sumner attracted attention. It was a new 
view of the subject; and the subject was one of present and 
growing importance to the country. Government aid to roads 
and railroads had always met with opposition. The building 
of the National Eoad, from Baltimore westward, over the 
mountains, in the face of steady and persistent opposition had 
been one of the triumphs of the statesmanship of Henry Clay, 
for which the people of Wheeling, through whose city it passed 
had erected to him a monument. Railroads were only begin- 
ning to be built ; our country was large and its wants growing. 
To build them would require the expenditure of millions. 
Should the National Government establish the precedent of 
furnishing this aid ? True it was not money, but public lands 
they now asked, yet the public lands had a value and Sumner 
was in favor of giving such aid. 

But the question of the disposition of the public lands was as 
interesting as that of internal improvements. The Senators 
from many of the other states, having none of this land, within 
their boundaries, thought it should be preserved to be sold. The 
debate continued from day to day until the seventeenth day of 
February when Sumnei*'s argument was assailed by Hunter of 



248 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Virginia, who with Underwood of Kentucky was particularly 
radical in opposition to the bill. When Hunter ceased speak- 
ing, Sumner arose to restate his argument and call attention to 
the fact that if wrong it should be answered, that Hunter had 
only claimed he had overstated the figures but nowhere denied 
that they were figures even if overstated and had not even 
attempted to answer them. The debate still continuing, an 
effort was made to amend the bill, by providing that portions 
of the public land should be distributed to each of the thirteen 
original states and to Maine, Vermont, Tennessee and Kentucky 
in the proportion of one acre to each inhabitant, according to 
the last census to be used for purposes of education and in- 
ternal improvements. Sumner opposed this amendment. 

The Senators from the West and Southwest appreciated the 
service Sumner had done them in this debate and felt under ob- 
ligation to him. It was valuable aid from an unexpected source. 
His argument attracted a good deal of attention, in the Senate, 
and over the country, — especially in the West where most of the 
lands lay. In Massachusetts it was made the occasion of 
criticism of Sumner by the Whigs and of a resolution on the 
subject, in the Legislature. The Whig papers in Boston took 
it up against him and criticised his course. But the Free- 
Soilers were satisfied with it. They were largely composed of 
young men and controlled by conscience more than by questions 
of finance. They had sent Sumner to the Senate and were loyal 
to him. At this time he was in consultation or correspondence 
with many of them and appreciated their advice and confidence. 

One of their leaders was Eobert Rantoul, Jr., who was elected 
to Congress, the previous fall, by the same coalition of Free- 
Soilers and Democrats as had placed Sumner in the Senate. He 
had also been chosen, by the same coalition, to fill the unexpired 
term of Webster in the Senate, an interval of a few weeks 
expiring next March 4, and had he lived, he would probably 
have become Sumner's colleague, after the next election. 
He died at Washington, while serving his first term in the 
House. He belonged to one of the substantial families of 
Beverly, was an able lawyer, had been carefully educated to 
his profession and of such tastes as led him to continue his 
literary studies in connection with the law. He had at the 
time of his death, in contemplation, the preparation of a his- 
tory of France. His father before him had filled important 
positions, had been a Member of the Legislature, Collector of 
Eevenue at Boston, and United States District Attorney for 
Massachusetts, so that, by training and experience, the son had 
been fitted for a public career. But it was ended all too soon. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 2-19 

at the early age of forty-six, suddenly, after a brief illness, — so 
brief that Sumner did not know of his sickness, till he heard 
he was dying. His interest in the anti-slavery cause, his posi- 
tion in Congress, his ability to maintain himself, in public 
speech, made him one whose death at the time, was a loss. 

Two days after his death in a eulogy in the Senate, Sumner 
said of him : " There was no topic within the wide range of 
national concern, which did not occupy his thoughts. The 
resources and needs of the West were all known to him and 
Western interests were like his own. As the pioneer, resting 
from his daily labors learns the death of Rantoul, he wall feel 
a personal grief. The fishermen on the Eastern coast, many of 
whom are dwellers in his District will sympathize with the 
pioneer. These hardy children of the sea, returning in their 
small craft from late adventures, and hearing the sad tidings, 
will feel that they too have lost a friend. And well they may. 
During his last fitful hours of life, while reason still struggled 
against disease, he was anxious for their welfare. The speech 
which he had hoped soon to make in their behalf, was then 
chasing through his mind. Finally in broken utterances, he 
gave to them his latest thoughts. The death of such a man, so 
sudden in mid career is well calculated to arrest attention 
and to furnish admonition," 

After enumerating the good causes, — public improvements, 
particularly railroads, common schools, temperance, etc., for 
which he had struggled, Sumner said : " There is another 
cause that commanded his early sympathies and some of his 
latest endeavors, to which had life been spared, he would have 
given the splendid maturity of his powers. Posterity cannot 
forget this ; but I am forbidden by the occasion to name it here. 
Sir, in the long line of portraits on the walls of the Ducal 
Palace at Venice, commemorating its Doges, a single panel 
where a portrait should have been is shrouded by a dark cur- 
tain. But this darkened blank, in that place, attracts the be- 
holder more than any picture. Let such a curtain fall to-day 
upon this theme." 

The reference was to slavery, — the first Sumner made to it 
in the Senate. But even this slight allusion in the sensitive 
condition of the Senate, caused such irritation, that Sumner's 
colleague, John Davis, gave it as his reason for not speaking on 
the resolutions and allowing the vote upon them to be taken at 
once. 

But the slavery question could not be kept out of the Con- 
gressional Record. Frown on it, resolve against it, compromise 
it as they might, still it seemed to be the one subject that always 



250 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

appeared. The mention of it was almost sure to provoke a 
scene. Members were tired of it. They folt that little good 
could come of farther discussion of it. They ruled it out of 
order, but the people sent new men, wiio would bring it to the 
attention of Congress again and insist upon discussing it. 

During his first winter in Washington, Sumner was asked 
to present to the Senate a memorial asking for the release of 
Drayton and Sayres, master and mate of the schooner Pearl, 
who had been convicted and imprisoned for the crime of trans- 
porting slaves. This was the first work in the anti-slavery 
cause that Sumner was asked to do in Washington. It is an 
interesting episode in anti-slavery history and on this account,' 
aside from Sumner's connection with it, is worth preserving. 
On the morning of the sixteenth of April, 1848, the people of 
Washington were surprised, with the intelligence that seventy- 
six slaves had escaped on board the Pearl, a vessel, that had been 
quietly lying in the river and sailing down the Potomac, were 
then hurrying off to Freedom. The news and the thought that 
their own property might thus easily flee away, caused much 
excitement among the slave-holders of the city. Other vessels 
were immediately dispatched in pursuit, the Pearl was over- 
hauled and the slaves with Drayton and Sayres were brought 
back to the city. Upon landing, the offending master and 
mate were met on the wharf by a mob that threatened to 
lynch them. The police however succeeded in getting them to 
the jail, when the mob surrounded the building and learning 
that Joshua E.. Giddings was there in consultation with the 
prisoners, as their attorney, they demanded that he be at once 
expelled or they would cause bloodshed. And the jailer obliged 
him to retire. 

The case of the offending master and mate was promptly 
brought before a grand-jury and one hundred and fifteen in- 
dictments were found against them. Horace Mann, then a Eep- 
resentative in Congress from Massachusetts, at Sumner's re- 
quest, defended them, on their trial, Sumner assisting him with 
authorities. They were, however, convicted and were sentenced 
to pay fines amounting to more than twenty thousand dollars 
and were remanded to jail till the fines and costs were paid. 
They had already lain in jail more than four years. Some good 
people in Boston, among them Wendell Phillips, united in a 
petition to Congress asking for their release and sent it to 
Sumner for presentation in the Senate. Sumner, feeling that 
such a petition presented to a body of such sentiments would 
only raise a new storm against Drayton and Sayres, took the 
liberty to withhold it and applied to President Fillmore, in 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 251 

their behalf, for a pardon. The President questioned his power 
to grant a pardon in such a case, part of the fines being payable 
to the owners of the slaves abducted; and so the matter rested 
for some months. Upon Sumner pressing the matter farther, 
the President asked him to furnish some authorities in 
support of his power to grant a pardon in such cases. Sumner 
thereupon prepared a brief upon this question, which the Presi- 
dent submitted to the Attorney-General. He sustained the view 
of Sumner as to the power of the President to grant the pardon, 
but expressly refrained from expressing any opinion as to the 
propriety of granting it in these cases. 

Soon after, the Whig Convention nominating General Scott 
for President, thus defeating Fillmore, the pardons were 
granted. The President informed Sumner, by a note that he 
had signed them, when Sumner fearing that the prisoners 
would be arrested on other charges, went to the jail, in a car- 
riage and placing them in charge of a friend, they were driven 
under the darkness of night to Baltimore, where they arrived 
in time to take the early train for the North and were soon in 
a Free State and out of danger. 

By some persons Sumner was criticised for not following the 
request of the petitioners and presenting their prayer to Con- 
gress. Such a course they thought would have given publicity 
to the application and would have aroused indignation at the 
treatment of the prisoners, and would also have provoked a 
discussion of the slavery question in Congress. But whatever 
of benefit it might have brought in this way, would the chance 
of the good have justified the additional suffering it would 
have entailed on Drayton and Sayres? Sumner thought it 
would not and the prisoners, when he visited the jail for the 
purpose of consulting them, agreed with him. They felt they 
had suffered enough already for the cause, without additional 
martyrdom being placed upon them. Wendell Phillips frankly 
admitted the wisdom of Sumner's course. 

It was not the intention of either the Whigs or Democrats to 
have any discussion of the slavery question during this ses- 
sion of Congress. The Compromise measures, which were to 
settle everything, and on which Webster had made his fatal 
seventh of March speech, had been passed only the previous ses- 
sion, after a long and anxious debate. The recollection of it 
was too fresh for them to permit this Compromise to be at- 
tacked thus early. Both parties in their National Platforms, 
during the summer of 1852, while Congress was still in ses- 
sion, had declared the question settled and were pledged against 
any attempt to reopen it. They both hoped to be rid of it 



253 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

during the coming campaign. They were determined that 
whoever attempted to open it, should be put down if possible. 
This did not bode well for Sumner, who had been sent to the 
Senate to do this very thing and because of his especial capacity 
for it. But he was not a party to the Compromise, and the 
pledges of others to sustain it, did not bind him. He was there- 
fore determined to discuss it. 

On the 26th day of May, he offered in the Senate, the pe- 
tition of some residents of Massachusetts, of the Society of 
Friends for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. This law 
was enacted as a part of the Compromise. He had read only a 
part of it, the prayer of the petition, setting out in respectful 
terms, that they asked the repeal of the law, because of its in- 
justice to a long oppressed race and especially because it placed 
them in jeopardy of the penalties of a law, which they could not 
conscientiously obey. He was prefacing his motion for a refer- 
ence of the petition to the proper committee with the remark: 
" This memorial is commended by the character of the religious 
association from which it proceeds, — men who mingle rarely in 
public affairs, but with austere virtue seek to carry the Chris- 
tian rule into life ; " when he was abruptly stopped by the 
Presiding officer, Mr. King, of Alabama, who called him to 
order, telling him that he had no right to say anything more 
than state the contents of the memorial and move its reference, 
that more than this was ont of order. Yet Sumner had ob- 
served that it was the constant practice, upon any other sub- 
ject to do just as he was doing. Upon being assured that it 
was not his purpose to make a speech on the subject of slavery, 
the Senate allowed him to proceed. He then completed his 
statement, but gave notice that at some appropriate time he 
proposed to address the Senate upon this question. 

He moved to refer the petition to the Committee on the Judi- 
ciary. A discussion of the motion arose. Finally on motion 
of Badger of North Carolina, the memorial was laid on the 
table. 

Without saying much about it, except to his most intimate 
friends, Sumner felt discouraged by the prospect. Senators 
knew he wished to speak on the subject, but they were resolved, 
and openly made their boasts, that he should not be allowed 
to do so. He felt that he could not expect to change their 
convictions by what he would say, but he insisted that he should 
be allowed the right of free discussion, in the place to which 
he had been elected. Almost pleadingly he reminded them, 
that thus far during the session, he had forborne to obtrude 
his views upon them, that it was only justice he asked, that 



LIFE OF CHARLES S^VMNER 253 

both sides should be heard and he hoped they would hear him 
patiently, while he candidly and courteously presented the 
views of another portion of the country differing from theirs. 

On the 27th day of July, Sumner made another attempt to 
be heard. He offered a resolution in the Senate instructing the 
Judiciary Committee to consider the expediency of reporting 
a bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Law and gave notice that he 
would ask to be heard on the next day. Accordingly the next 
day, July 28th, he called up the Resolution and asked "the Senate 
for leave to speak upon it. 

" In allowing me this privilege," he said, " this right, I 
may say, you do not commit yourselves in any way to the prin- 
ciple of the resolution ; you merely follow the ordinary usage 
of the Senate, and yield to a brother Senator the opportunity 
which he craves, in the practical discharge of his duty, to ex- 
press convictions dear to his heart, and dear to large numbers 
of his constituents. For the sake of these constituents, for 
my own sake, I now desire to be heard. Make such disposition 
of my resolutions afterwards, as to you shall seem best; visit 
upon me any degree of criticism, censure or displeasure; but 
do not refuse me a hearing. ' Strike, but hear.'" 

A debate ensued, all the speakers except one, being opposed 
to taking up the resolution. They assigned the want of time 
and danger to the Union as the reasons. When the vote was 
taken, there were only ten in its favor; while thirty-two voted 
against it. Sumner was deliberately denied the privilege of 
speaking. He now saw that if he spoke at all, it would have to 
be as a matter of right, at a time when the Senate under its 
rules could not stop him. He must therefore watch for such a 
time and find it, or go back to his constituents, at the close of 
the session, unheard and, perhaps, discredited. 

His constituents did not understand his silence. How was 
it possible for plain people, — farmers at work in the fields, or 
the smith at his forge, or the fisherman toiling at his oar, to 
know the rules of the Senate? Who would explain his silence 
to them ? And yet they were the people around whose hearths, 
the newspapers were daily read in hope of learning of some of 
the powerful strokes for Freedom, they had been accustomed 
to hear from him on the platform and at the hustings. Would 
they think, that he, who had talked to them of the need of more 
backbone and whom they had supported because he was thought 
to have this essential qualification, had been seduced from the 
path of duty. And yet these were people whose good opinion 
Sumner valued. Such thoughts troubled him. 

In certain quarters in Massachusetts, there was already dis- 



254 ^l^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

satisfaction with his silence. The Free-Soilers, the party which 
had really placed him in the Senate, were men usually of high 
moral purposes, but intent on the one object before them and 
so absorbed in it, that they were apt to forget all other con- 
siderations. They were often impracticable. They were ex- 
acting in their claims upon public officials and inclined to be 
pessimistic and to believe that men in office were not faithful 
or honest. When their confidence in a man was once shaken 
they were unreasonable in their opinion of him and usually 
loud in expressing it. This was a hard party to serve. As their 
servant, Sumner felt during his first winter in Washington that 
his position was a hard one. He feared they were requiring 
more of him than human skill could accomplish. 

Sumner's Free-Soil constituents were frequently taunted 
on the subject of his silence, by the Whigs on one side and by 
the non-voting Abolitionists, on the other. Of course the Whigs 
after fighting his election, wished him to fail. This would con- 
firm their estimate of him, when they said before his election 
that he was unfit for the place. They had abundant means of 
calling attention to his silence and giving publicity to his course, 
for they controlled the leading newspapers of the State. These 
papers had generally pursued a disparaging course towards him. 
For example, in the Iowa land debate, they gave prominence, 
in their accounts of it, to the views of his adversaries and to 
what was said in criticism of Sumner, while they gave no space 
to his remarks or to his arguments. In a note to an edition of 
his speeches which he was then publishing, Winthrop called 
disparaging attention to Sumner's silence. Another Whig 
made a reference to it, in a speech in the State Senate, so 
pointed and offensive that Wilson left the chair to reply to it. 
Such thrusts were common in conversation. 

The non-voting Abolitionists were even worse than the 
Whigs. Wliile it must be conceded they meant well to the anti- 
slavery cause, they had such a disagreeable way of showing it, 
that it may fairly be questioned whether they did not do the 
cause more harm than good. They stubbornly refused to help 
it by their votes, yet after their more sensible anti-slavery 
friends, by working and managing and voting had secured a 
victory, they presumptuously rushed in to take charge of who- 
ever was thus elected assuming to direct him in everything and 
if he did not at once bow to their nod, they proceeded to dis- 
card him and proclaim him untrue. Just at this time they were 
busy denouncing Sumner. 

William Lloyd Garrison, at a meeting of the Norfolk County 
Anti-Slavery Society, held at Dedham, offered a resolution, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 255 

criticising Sumner for his silence for four months. But the 
resolution was successfully opposed by others, who knew the 
reasons for his silence, from correspondence and who approved 
his course. Among its opposers was Wendell Phillips. He 
spoke against the resolution and said that the man who delivered 
that City Oration and who not being aware of the sacrifice he 
was making for his principles, yet had stuck to them as he did 
after finding it out, and who had afterward advanced to the 
prison discipline and anti-slavery struggles and maintained 
himself as he had done, had earned the right to be trusted, 
farther than men could see his steps or know his reasons and 
that he proposed to trust him to the end of the session. 

Eichard H. Dana, Jr., best characterized the situation, how- 
ever, when he wrote Sumner : " There are some men who think 
that nothing is doing, unless there is a gun firing or a bell 
ringing. They are superficial persons in whom is no depth of 
root ; they are easily offended. The work we have to do is a 
long one ; there is no pending question. Patience and judgment 
and preparation are as necessary as zeal and more rare." 

The effect, however, of all this carping criticism of the Whigs 
and the non-voting Abolitionists was to the disadvantage of 
Sumner, who had not yet an established reputation as a states- 
man to give confidence to his supporters. It made his position 
difficult, and it stirred up opposition to him in his own party. 
But in the main, while many of the party did not understand 
his course, they continued loyal to him. The leaders, however, 
realized that they could not be depended on to continue this 
support indefinitely. Voters had been attracted from the old 
parties, by the promises held out by the new and these promises 
must be fulfilled. They advised him that to let the session 
close, without speaking would destroy confidence in him and 
weaken his position with the people and would injure the 
party, for whose success they were all anxious. 

What Sumner feared was that he might not be able to speak. 
He realized now that the Senate would not consent to hear him. 
He realized also that he could not be heard as of right and 
without the consent of the Senate except on the appropriation 
bill when it came up for consideration. Some of the Senators, 
like Soule, had expressed to him privately, a desire to hear his 
views, but the discipline of the party was so great upon this 
question, that upon July 27 and 28, when he had asked the 
privilege of speaking, these very Senators had voted with the 
majority against hearing him. Upon any other question this 
courtesy would not have been denied him. Some of them urged 
him to ask leave to print his speech, in the Eecord without 



256 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

delivering it; others had begged that he would not press the 
Senate to a vote on slavery, at this session and thus embarrass 
some supporters of General Scott, like Seward, by compelling 
them to record their position. But Sumner's answer was that 
he would speak and, God willing, he would press the question 
to a vote, even if he were left alone. This being known, he 
feared the consideration of the appropriation bill would be 
postponed till the last day of the session to prevent him being 
heard, and thus compel him to either not speak at all or if he 
did, to not be heard fully. He might prevent the passage of the 
bill and thereby cause an extra session. Sumner, however, was 
a man not easily turned from his purpose. He knew he had a 
right to be heard, and he determined he would be heard, even 
at the risk of an extra session. 

But as he did not wish to take before the country the respon- 
sibility for an extra session, he kept his purpose of speaking on 
the appropriation bill a secret, except from a few close friends, 
upon whom he laid the injunction of secrecy. To prevent its 
being suspected, he cleared away the evidence of preparation, 
removed the books and papers from his desk and gave attention 
to the routine work of the Senate. He, however, pressed his 
preparation vigorously, at all times when the Senate was not in 
session, knowing that no work now would be lost, that the time 
was approaching when he must be heard. 

At last that time came. The appropriation bill was reported 
to the Senate, on the nineteenth day of August, but it was not 
until August twenty-sixth, within three days of the close of 
the session, that any item of the bill was reached for considera- 
tion, to which his speech would be relevant. His purpose was, 
when the clause was reached, providing for the expense of the 
United States Courts in executing the Fugitive Slave Law, to 
move to strike out every appropriation for the execution of it 
and ask that the law itself be repealed. On the twenty-sixth 
day of August, Hunter, of Virginia, on recommendation of the 
Committee, moved to amend the bill, as follows : 

'•' That where the ministerial officers of the United States 
have or shall incur extraordinary expenses in executing the 
laws thereof, the payment of which is not specifically provided 
for, the President of the United States is authorized to allow 
the payment thereof under the special taxation of the District 
or Circuit Court of the District in which the said services have 
been or shall be rendered, to be paid from the appropriation for 
defraying the expenses of the Judiciary." 

This was Sumner's opportunity and he promptly seized it and 
offered the following amendment to the one offered by Hunter: 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 357 

" Provided that no suc^li allowance shall be authorized for 
any expenses incurred in executing the Act of September 18, 
1850, for the surrender of fugitives from service or labor, which 
said Act is hereby repealed." 

On this he took the floor and spoke. In commencing he did 
not conceal the exultation he felt, in having at last secured this 
opportunity to discuss slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. 

" Here is a provision for extraordinary expenses," he said, 
" incurred in executing the laws of the IJnited States. Extra- 
ordinary expenses ! Sir, beneath these specious words lurks the 
very subject on which by a solemn vote of this body, I was 
refused a hearing. Here it is no longer open to the charge of 
being an ' abstraction/ but actually presented for practical 
legislation; not introduced by me, but by the Senator from 
Virginia, on the recommendation of an important committee 
of the Senate; not brought forward weeks ago, when there was 
ample time for discussion, but only at this moment, without 
any reference to the late period of the session. The amendment 
which I offer proposes to remove one chief occasion of these 
extraordinary expenses. Beyond all controversy or cavil it is 
strictly in order. And now, at last, among these final crowded 
days of our duties here, but at this earliest opportunity, I am to 
be heard, — not as a favor, but as a right. The graceful usages 
of this body may be abandoned but the established privileges 
of debate cannot be abridged. Parliamentary courtesy may be 
forgotten, but parliamentary law must prevail. The subject 
is broadly before the Senate. By the blessing of God it shall 
be discussed." 

He referred to the responsibility he assumed in attacking an 
institution engrafted as slavery had been upon the constitution 
and laws of the country. In the existing distemper of the 
public mind and at the present juncture no man, he said, could 
enter upon the service which he now undertook, without per- 
sonal responsibility such as could be sustained only by the sense 
of duty which, under God, is always one's best support. But he 
was willing to be held responsible for this act before the Senate 
and the country and for every word which he was about to utter. 
He was painfully convinced of the unutterable wrong and woe 
of slavery and he believed that according to the true spirit of 
the Constitution it could find no place under our National 
Government. 

" I have never been a politician," he said. " The slave of 
principle I call no party master. By sentiment, education and 
conviction a friend of human rights in their utmost expansion, 
I have ever most sincerely embraced the Democratic Idea, — not. 



258 L-^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

indeed, as represented or professed Jjy any party but accord- 
ing to its real significance as transfigured in the Declaration 
of Independence and in the injunctions of Christianity. In 
this idea I see no narrow advantage merely for individuals or 
classes, but the sovereignty of the people, and the greatest 
liappiness of all secured by equal laws. I shall hold fast always 
to this idea and to any political party which truly embraces it." 

He reminded them that he would not forget the amenities 
which belong to debate and which especially became the Sen- 
ate. It was the institution of slavery which he assailed, not 
its apologists. It was this wrong which he condemned without 
fear and without favor but as without impeachment of any 
person. 

Coming to the question of slavery he said that at the thresh- 
old he encountered the objection that there had been a final 
settlement in principle and substance of this question and that 
all discussion of it was closed, that both tlie old political parties 
in their conventions had recently united in this declaration ; and 
yet this was the very subject which was palpitating in every 
heart and burning on every tongue. He insisted that such 
party declarations were tyrannical. They curtailed the power 
of legislation and trampled upon the right of free speech. On 
slavery as on every other subject he claimed the right to be 
heard. 

In words almost prophetic he added : " The movement 
against slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even now it is 
gathering its "forces, soon to be confessed everywhere. It may 
not be felt yet in the high places of office and power, but all 
who can put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and com- 
prehend its incessant and advancing tread." 

For a long time the demands and the threats of the South 
had been growing. As it reached out for more territory, of 
which to make slave states, it became intolerant of opposition. 
The refusal of its demands was met witli prompt threats of se- 
cession and complaints that the North was not fair to the 
South, that while the North had its tariff, largely favorable to 
its manufactures, it was ready to wrest from the South its 
cheap slave labor without which the rice and cotton fields 
could not be tilled with profit. Whoever advocated the aboli- 
tion of slavery was, therefore, charged by the slave power 
as being a sectionalist, as wishing to drive the South out and 
break up the Union. Accordingly an anti-slavery party was a 
sectional party, but a pro-slavery party was a national party. 
To be an an/t-slavery Whig was to be a Sectional Whig; but 
to be a pro-slavery Whig was to be a National Whig. " Anti- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 259 

slavery " had become a term of reproach in the North, as well 
as in the South. Both the Wlii<T and Democratic parties as- 
pired to be " National " parties and they had accordingly both 
Ijecome ;j/-o-slavery. It was Sumner's hope to remove from the 
friends of Freedom, the opprobrium of this term " sectional ". 

This was the title of his speech : " Freedom, national ; 
slavery, sectional." He sought to show, first, The true relation 
of slavery to the- National Government, that there was no 
national power under the Constitution by which it could be 
supported, and, second, The character of the legislation for the 
rendition of fugitives from service, The Fugitive Slave Law, 
that it was unconstitutional and offensive to the principles of 
our Government. 

To show that slavery had no support in the Constitution, he 
quoted from the decisions of Lord Mansfield and the Supreme 
Court of Mississippi and the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 
where it was held that if slavery existed at all, it must be 
by virtue of positive enactment, that a condition of perpetual 
bondage was so contrary to human rights and the law of nature 
that it could only be created by express enactment, that no 
form of implication could support it. He then showed that 
slavery was nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and that all 
its provisions made slavery impossible, as a National institution. 
It could only be derived by interpretation, which the authorities 
cited forbade and he farther insisted that by no fair interpreta- 
tion could it be allowed. The preamble recites that the people to 
promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty 
* * * do ordain and establish this Constitution." So the pur- 
pose of its enactment was in opposition to slavery. The con- 
temporary declarations in the Convention of its framers con- 
firmed this. Gouverneur Morris who "never would concur in 
upholding domestic slavery ; " Elbridge Gerry, who wanted to 
be " careful not to give any sanction to it ; " Oliver Elsworth 
who thought "the morality and wisdom of slavery were consid- 
erations belonging to the States themselves; Roger Sherman 
who was opposed to recognizing slaves as property; and James 
Madison who " thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution 
the idea that there could be property in men ; " — all showed 
they designedly omitted giving any sanction to the existence 
of slavery in the Constitution. Jurisdiction over the subject of 
slavery was recognized as belonging exclusively to the States 
and the framers did not intend that the Constitution should 
countenance it or the national government be in any way re- 
sponsible for its existence. In the Massachusetts convention to 
ratify the Constitution, General Heath had said that by adopt- 



260 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ing it, they did nothing to hold the blacks in slavery or to 
partake of other men's sins for it; and this seemed to be the 
sentiment of the convention. 

He argued that the political acts of a nation, like statutes in 
pari materia, ought to be construed together. The Declaration 
of Independence should be read with the Constitution, each 
to throw light upon the construction to be given to the other. 
It commences with the self-evident truth, that " all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights gov- 
ernments are instituted among men." Notice that the rights 
for which the Colonists were struggling were the liberty and 
equality which belonged to them as to all men. After the war 
for these principles had successfully closed the Continental 
Congress in an address to the States confirmed the doctrine of 
tlie Declaration by saying, " it had ever been the pride and 
boast of America that the rights for which she contended ivere 
the rights of human nature." The Constitution by refusing to 
recognize slavery confirmed the same universal right to liberty 
and equality as the Declaration and the Address. 

The rule of interpretation handed down from the English 
Common Law, not to be neglected in determining whether 
slavery found any support in the Constitution, was that in any 
question under this instrument, " every word must be con- 
strued in favor of Liberty. Slavery was not to be supported 
by interpretation or by implication unless clearly within the 
intention of the framers. In cases of doubtful construction, 
the doubt was to be resolved in favor of liberty. Following 
this rule of construction, the Supreme Court of the United 
States refused to recognize slaves as property or otherwise than 
as persons, saying that the power over slavery belonged to the 
States respectively, it was local in its character and in its effects 
(15 Peters 507). 

Thus from every point of view, Sumner concluded, that 
slavery was not a National, but a Sectional, institution. Free- 
dom alone was National. 

Such a construction of the Constitution and of the powers of 
the National Government, he argued, was confirmed by the 
history and prevailing sentiment of the time of their formation. 
When that Government was organized there was not a slave 
anywhere within the National territory. The great men who 
organized it, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jay and Jefferson, 
Patrick Henry, " the orator of liberty " and William Pinkney, 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMVER 261 

" the acknowledged head of the American Bar," all concurred 
in condemning it. 

One of the earliest acts of the first Congress under the Con- 
stitution was to ratify the Ordinance of 1787, forever prohibit- 
ing slavery in the North West Territory, thus saving this broad 
tract to freedom. Abolition societies of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania alike petitioned this same Congress in behalf of the 
slaves. Franklin, then eighty-four years of age, set his name as 
president of one Society to the petition from his State, asking 
Congress to " step to the very verge of the power vested in it for 
discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow 
men." The policy then was, not the nationalization of slavery, 
but the denationalization of it. In the conventions to consider 
the Constitution, several of the States expressed fears for the 
indefiniteness of some of its provisions and in accordance with 
their suggestions, the first Congress presented to the States for 
adoption this clause, which afterwards being ratified, became 
the Tenth Amendment ; " The powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people." 
Thus not having provided for slavery in the Constitution, in 
express terms, or by any fair implication, they went farther 
and reserved all authority over every such question to the 
State. So there being no power in the National Government 
to create a system of slavery, all national legislation upholding 
it was unconstitutional and void. 

Sumner also called attention to the fact that on the recom- 
mendation of the first Congress, another Amendment had been 
added to the Constitution : " No person shall be deprived of 
life, liherty or property without due process of Jaw." He argued 
that the force of this Amendment, as a safeguard of Freedom 
was greater as shown by its history than even its emphatic 
language showed. As originally recommended, it read : " No 
freeman ought to be deprived of his life, liberty or property 
but hy the law of the land." But Congress had rejected it in 
this form and refused to confine this great bill of rights to 
freemen alone, but had extended it to every person, "whether 
Caucasian, Indian or African, — from the President to the 
slave." They forbade liherty to be taken from any one, except 
by some regular process of the law, as indictment or present- 
ment. 

The application of these principles, he argued, the funda- 
mental principles of the Republic, if carried out in the spirit 
of their adoption, would abolish slavery everywhere from 
National territory, make it impossible upon the high seas, under 



262 LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 

our flag, stop it in the District of Columbia, prevent the sanc- 
tion of Congress to the admission of slave States, the Govern- 
ment to support slavery or to hunt slaves. 

" And yet," he said " politicians of the hour undertake to 
place these convictions under formal ban. The slave masters 
few in number, amounting to not more than three hundred and 
fifty thousand, according to the recent census, have succeeded 
in dictating the policy of the National Government, and have 
written slavery on its front. The change which began in the 
desire for wealth, was aggravated by the desire for political 
predominance. Through slavery the cotton crop increased, 
with its enriching gains; through slavery, States became part 
of the Slave Power. And now an arrogant and unrelenting 
ostracism is applied, not only to all who express themselves 
against slavery, but to every man unwilling to be its menial. A 
novel test for office is introduced, which would have excluded all 
the Fathers of the Republic, — even Washington, Jeiferson and 
Franklin ! " 

" This single fact reveals the extent to which the National 
Government has departed from its true course and its great 
examples. For myself, I know no better aim under the Consti- 
tution than to bring the Government back to the precise posi- 
tion on this question it occupied on the auspicious morning of 
its first organization by Washington, — * * * that the sentiments 
of the Fathers may again prevail with our rulers, and the Na- 
tional Flag may nowhere shelter slavery." 

Sumner tlien passed to the second branch of his subject, the 
nature of the provision for the rendition of fugitives from 
service, the Fugitive Slave Law. 

He argued from the Debates in the Convention that when the 
Constitution was framed no such power was claimed for Con- 
gress as was exercised in the passage of this law. The subject 
of the recovery of fugitive slaves was brought before the Con- 
vention once, about the time of its adjournment and then the 
proposition to give Congress power over the subject was 
promptly objected to and it was as promptly withdrawn. It was 
proposed to amend the clause for the surrender of fugitives from 
justice to make it also include the surrender of slaves as well 
as criminals. When the amendment was withdrawn, the clause 
for the surrender of criminals was unanimously adopted as it 
now appears in the Constitution. The clause for the surrender 
of persons bound to service had no reference to slavery and 
was adopted without debate and without opposition. The claim 
of the slaveholders that this clause referred to slaves and was 
adopted by way of compromise was, as shown by the Debates, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 263 

absolutely without foundation. The States in ratifying the 
Constitution did not make such a claim in their Convention 
nor did the men who had assisted to frame it. 

The first assumption of the power to pass such a law, appeared 
in the Act of Congress of 1793, when it was tacked on to a law 
for the reclamation of criminals. In this apparently accidental 
manner, without attracting attention, it crept into the Statutes. 
More than a quarter of a century elapsed, before it was success- 
fully enforced. In 1801 and again in 1817, an effort was made 
to secure more effective legislation on the subject; but both at- 
tempts failed. It was not until 1850 that the first really effi- 
cient legislation, in the Fugitive Slave Law, was enacted. 

Speaking of this law, for whose repeal he was arguing, Sum- 
ner declared : " There is no safeguard of Human Freedom 
which the Monster Act does not set at nought. It commits 
this great question ' of a man's liberty ' not to a solemn trial, 
but to summary proceedings. It commits it not to one of the 
high tribunals of the land, but to the unaided judgment of a 
petty magistrate. It commits it to a magistrate appointed, not 
by the President with the consent of the Senate, but by the 
Court, holding office, not during good behavior, but merely dur- 
ing the will of the Court and receiving not a regular salary, 
but fees according to each individual case. It authorizes 
judgment on ex parte evidence, without the sanction of a 
cross-examination. It denies the writ of Habeas Corpus, ever 
known as the Paladium of the citizen. Contrary to the declared 
purposes of the framers of the Constitution, it sends the fugitive 
back ' at the public expense '. It bribes the Commissioner by 
a double stipend to pronounce against Freedom. If he dooms 
a man to slavery, the reward is ten dollars ; but saving him to 
freedom, his dole is five. It visits with penalties the faithful 
men and women who render to the fugitive slave the succor and 
shelter which religion requires to be given to the poor and the 
oppressed. According to the experience of all civilized nations 
there should be an end to the right to bring a suit fixed by 
statutes of limitation, but this act permits proceedings against 
those enjoying freedom without any reference to the lapse of 
time." 

Sumner insisted that the law was a usurpation by Congress of 
powers not granted by the Constitution, that it was not within 
the express powers granted, nor could it be fairly implied 
from any general grant, that the law was also unconstitutional 
because it deprived the person apprehended of the right of 
trial by jury, the Constitution providing that " no person shall 
be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of 



264 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

law," in other words, as interpreted, without a regular suit at 
law, with trial by jury. It further provided that, " in suits at 
common law where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty 
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved," and he 
maintained that a suit to recover a fugitive was within the 
purview of this clause, for a man's freedom was above all price 
and hence without doubt of more than twenty dollars in value. 

He drew a parallel between the Fugitive Slave Law and the 
British Stamp Act, that had excited the revolt of the Colonies 
against the Mother country, showing that the same disregard 
of the provisions of the Britisli constitution, the same denial 
of the right of trial by jury existed in both. And he insisted 
that the same injustice in the one had provoked tlie same re- 
sistance as it must in the other, that neither could be enforced. 
" In the face of an awakened community, where discussion 
had free scope, no men though supported hj office and wealth 
could long maintain injustice. The Stamp Act was discussed 
and understood. Its violation of constitutional rights was 
exposed. In the charnel-house of history, with unclean things 
of the Past it rots. Thither the Slave Act would follow." 

This law, he argued, could not be enforced and, if not, it 
should be repealed. It lacked the essential support of the public 
conscience in the States where it was to be enforced. This was 
the life of every law and without it a statute could be only empty 
words. The law that could be enforced only by the bayonet, 
was no law. The attempts to enforce it had been signal failures. 
At Buffalo, the fugitive was knocked, by a log of wood, against 
a red hot stove and his trial commenced, while tlie blood still 
oozed from his wounded head. At Syracuse, an unexpected mob 
surrounded the prisoner and rescued him. The same thing 
occurred in Boston, at the first attempt to execute the law, when 
a crowd of colored men forced their way into the court-room, 
rescued the prisoner and allowed him to escape to Canada. In 
another instance when a slave-hunter appeared in the city to 
reclaim a fugitive and his wife, by some of the first citizens, 
they were secreted and conveyed on board a vessel and sent to 
England. In still a third case, the slave was arrested on the 
pretext that he was a criminal, only after a deadly struggle, 
tried, with the weight of the Administration at Washington 
against him, to make it a test case, in a court-house girdled with 
chains, convicted and escorted to the vessel, that was to return 
him to slavery, by three hundred armed policemen, while the 
pulpit and the people of Boston trembled with indignation at 
the unaccustomed sight. At Plarrisburg, the fugitive was shot ; 
at Christiana, the slave-hunter was shot. At New York every 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 265 

attempt to enforce the law was attended with strife. A law 
that produced no better results should be at once repealed. 

Sumner produced an autograph letter of Washington that had 
never before been made public. He was writing to a friend in 
the North desiring his good offices in the return of a fugitive 
slave woman to whom her mistress, Lady Washington, was 
attached. But he enjoined upon him caution in what he did, 
that nothing should be done for her recovery that "would ex- 
cite a mob or riot * * * or even uneasy sensations in the minds of 
well-disposed citizens." The fugitive was never returned. And 
Washington never made any farther effort for her recovery — 
an example of forbearance, in strange contrast with the spirit 
of this law and of the attempts made to enforce it ! 

What then was to be the remedy, for the loss by the South of 
its fugitive slaves? Sumner insisted that the Nation had no 
power to legislate on this subject, that it was exclusively within 
the jurisdiction of the States, that each State must determine 
for itself the precise extent of its obligation and that in any 
law passed by them the fugitive slaves must not be denied the 
right of trial by jury and of the writ of habeas corpm; that they 
must be allowed to face and cross-examine the witnesses against 
them and to testify themselves and to produce evidence in 
their own behalf. 

Sumner occupied three hours and forty-five minutes in 
the delivery of the speech. The Senate gave him good attention 
and no one sought to interrupt him. The speech was unex- 
pected but when the word was passed around that he was speak- 
ing, the galleries and the floor were soon occupied with persons 
who wished to hear what he had to say. His colleague John 
Davis was behind the Speaker's chair when the vote was taken 
on Sumner's amendment. It was strange doctrine to him. 
Mr. Seward was also absent and did not vote. Mr. Web- 
ster came in during the speech and remained quietly listening 
for an hour or more. No one knows what thoughts were pass- 
ing through his mind, but it would have been interesting 
to see the fitful shadows come and go as the old statesman sat 
listening to the words of the young man who had dragged his 
own record to the bar of his constituents and had been returned 
to the Senate to teach the Nation these very principles of Lib- 
erty and Equality that he had betrayed. Already the man to 
whom he was listening was fulfilling the prediction, that he 
had made of him when a boy, that his country had a pledge 
of him. 

The Senate did not intend to have a discussion of slavery 
precipitated upon it, so close to its adjournment. Clemens of 



266 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Alabama, who first secured the floor after Sumner, expressed 
the hojie that none of his friends would reply to Sumner's 
speech, that " the barking of a puppy never did any harm." 
But the feeling of the pro-slavery Senators was aroused. Bad- 
ger of North Carolina undertook to reply to Sumner at length. 
To prove what he claimed was the pernicious influence of Sum- 
ner, in inciting the people to acts of violence, he quoted largely 
from his speech in Faneuil Hall, on November 6, 1850, in which 
he had arraigned the Fugitive Slave Bill. This led Hale of 
New Hampshire, in answering him, to remark that the quota- 
tions were the best part of Badger's speech. Weller of Cali- 
fornia argued that Sumner's course was calculated to bring 
upon him the blood of murdered men, that whoever " counsels 
murder is himself a murderer." Twenty Senators took part in 
the debate but only two, Chase and Hale, defended Sumner's 
position. It continued until seven p. m. when it was inter- 
rupted by Mr. Hunter asking that the consideration of the Ap- 
propriation Bill be proceeded with by the Senate. When the 
vote Avas taken on the amendment proposed by Sumner there 
were only four in its favor, Chase, Hale, Sumner and Wade; 
while forty-seven voted against it. Twelve years later Sumner 
reported to the Senate and without difficulty carried the repeal 
of this same law. 

The speech revealed to the Senate the character of Sumner. 
Often before anti-slavery men had appeared in Congress but 
they hesitated before the superior numbers of the opposition and 
almost witliout exception had allowed themselves to be cajoled 
or driven from the field. With some of them there was an ap- 
parent want of sincerity, a half apologetic maintenance of their 
views. With Hale who was one of the earliest and bravest, 
there was a disposition to speak lightly of his cause in private 
conversation, which, with a certain want of aggressiveness in 
public, gave his colleagues reason to doubt his sincerity. Now 
the pro-slavery people realized that they had a man to meet in 
public life, who meant what he said, who never spoke slight- 
ingly of his cause, who had no doubt he was right, who did not 
wait for supporters, who belonged to no party and would 
recognize no party whip and wlio without fear and without 
compromise, would fight and if defeated would fight again and 
still fight on until he was victorious. Here was a man they 
could not control, a man who had the gift of eloquence, that 
from his vantage ground in the Senate, gave him a peculiar 
power of reaching the people. It was this feeling, admitted by 
them in private, that aroused their violent antipathy to Sumner 
at a later day. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 267 

One of the apparent faults, which even his friends must ad- 
mit in Sumner's character, was his egotism. He had the most 
absolute confidence in his own convictions; he did not doubt 
that he was right in his conclusions and he could not see how 
others could have opinions different from his and still be sin- 
cere. He was intolerant of opposition and aggressive towards 
those who did not agree with him. He insisted upon pushing 
his own measures to the front and upon discussing them fully. 
This often caused friction and created feeling among his 
colleagues and it was often urged against him as a weakness. 
His enemies made much of it. But what would Charles Sumner 
have been in the Senate without it. If he had been of a doubt- 
ing, hesitating character, questioning his own convictions and 
deferring to those of others, stopping to be agreeable and 
waiting the pleasure of his colleagues to present his own meas- 
ures, what would he have accomplished in the Senate in 1851 
and the succeeding years? It was this largely that made him 
what he was, — the fearless, constant and, finally, successful 
leader. His times demanded a man not only of his talents, 
but of his faults also. 

His speech satisfied the expectations of his friends. It was 
what they had looked for when he was elected. The anxiety 
of some, for fear he had been captured by the society of the Cap- 
itol and in consequence had lost his enthusiasm for the cause, 
and the apprehension of others, who knew him better and ap- 
preciated his circumstances and feared that he might not be 
able to get an opportunity to be heard, alike were turned to a 
feeling of congratulation over the success he had scored. Wil- 
son, when he read it, pronounced it " glorious " and at once 
MTote Sumner how pleased he was that God had given him the 
power to aid in placing such a man in the Senate. William Cul- 
len Bryant, with a touch of sarcasm, declared the speech Avas the 
only thing which preserved the character of this Senate. Others 
thought it the ablest of all Sumner's speeches ; while still others, 
pro-slavery in sentiment, declared it would do more mischief 
than any speech ever made in the country. Several hundred 
thousand copies were distributed in America ; it was translated 
into German and two or more editions appeared in England. 
It had not secured the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. Such 
a result could not be hoped for now. But it was an able 
presentation of the anti-slavery side of the question, delivered 
from a position, where it would command attention, printed 
and circulated under the Nation's frank. It arrested public 
attention and called a halt in the onward march of events. It 
also became a mine of argument for the opponents of slavery. 



268 J-^PE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

After the delivery of the speech, Sumner continued in his 
seat for the remainder of the day's session. In the farther con- 
sideration of tlie Appropriation Bill, it was proposed to amend 
it, so as to allow the widow of Andrew J. Downing, Superin- 
tendent of Public Grounds, in Washington an additional al- 
lowance, equal to a year's salary, in consideration of her re- 
linquishment of all claim for her deceased husband's models 
and drawings designed for the Government. Upon this amend- 
ment Sumner spoke briefly. 

Four days later the Session closed. His brother George had 
returned from Europe after eleven years absence. He came on 
to Washington during the session and he and Charles occupied 
rooms together. Their separation had been a long one but 
there had been little diminution in the warmth of their affec- 
tion. Age and attainments had added to their appreciation of 
one another. They had kept up a frequent correspondence and 
by the exchange of thoughts and opinions had maintained an 
interest in each others plans. Charles had been disturbed at 
George's protracted absence and felt that he was not using pre- 
cious years to the best advantage. But George had been study- 
ing the languages and institutions of European countries and 
came home thoroughly equipped on these subjects. The 
Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, wished to avail himself 
of this knowledge and offered him an appointment in his de- 
partment, but in the stress of feeling upon the slavery ques- 
tion asked some pledge of a difference of political views from 
his brother Charles, which George felt would be unbecoming 
in him to grant and in consequence declined the appointment. 
George had a high sense of honor and was a careful student of 
men and events, was more conservative than Charles and had 
little sympathy for the anti-slavery views of his brother, but he 
lacked his aggressiveness, his all absorbirg industry and his 
high ideals. 

Sumner, as became customary with him afterwards, tarried 
at the close of the session in Washington. He did not return 
to Boston till shortly before the Free-Soil State Convention, 
held at Lowell on September 15. He spoke there briefly, urg- 
ing the necessity for a third political party devoted to the cause 
of Freedom. He was received by the convention with enthu- 
siastic demonstrations. But he soon went to Newport to visit 
his brother Horace and remained there till late in the fall. He 
took little or no part in the campaign. 

In this he made a mistake. The Free-Soilers had hoped with 
the aid of Democratic votes, to carry the State and secure 
the seat of John Davis in the Senate and also to elect a Legis- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 269 

lature and several Members of Congress. They failed every- 
where except in the election of one Member of Congress. In 
some Districts the majorities against them were exceedingly 
small. Wilson lacked one hundred votes of an election to 
Congress; Adams, four hundred; and two others, only two 
hundred each. The failure of these friends, by such narrow 
margins, caused some criticism of Sumner's course, at party 
headquarters, and it found its way into certain journals. But 
it did not spread widely enough to affect his standing with the 
masses. 

He was tired of politics. He had seen so much at Washington 
and besides he was not a politician. For his seat in the Senate 
he had, as yet, little attachment and probably did not care 
whether he was to continue in it or not. He held it more as a 
duty that had been laid upon him, which he was to carry 
through and terminate with honor, than as a prize to be cov- 
eted. It had not been a bed of roses for him, but a toilsome 
road, fraught with criticism and care, involving a separation 
from his friends and his books. In time these things changed. 
He lost much of his love of retirement, made warm friends at 
Washington among his associates, enjoyed the applause of his 
fellow men, liked to stand in the forefront of the battle and 
wield a political influence. Perhaps some misgivings at the 
results of this campaign and of his course in it troubled him; 
for after this he took an active part in campaigns and recog- 
nized his party's claim upon him. 



CHAPTEE XX 

SESSION" OF 1852-3 — MEMBER OF MASSACHUSETTS CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION — CAMPAIGN OF 1853 — COALITION 
DEFEATED — SUMNER's ISOLATION — NEBRASKA DEBATE — 
ITS EFFECT — PETITION TO REPEAL FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW — 
THE DEBATE — RECEPTION AT HOME — JOINS THE REPUB- 
LICAN PARTY LECTURE ON GRANVILLE SHARP 

During the session of Congress commencing December 1, 
1852, and ending March 4, 1853, there Avas no general discus- 
sion in the Senate of the slavery question. The Presidential 
campaign had just closed and the session being short, each side 
was content to let it rest for the present. Sumner was diligent 
in his attendance upon the meetings of the Senate, but did not 
take much part in the discussions. He spoke twice only ; once, 
advocating a bill authorizing the President to appoint Super- 
intendents for the Armories, who did not belong to the Army ; 
and once against secrecy in the proceedings of the Senate. He 
was still excluded from a place on the Committees of the Senate 
because " /ie ivas outside of any healthy political organization." 
He was not a controlling factor in its deliberations. He had not 
been in the Senate long enough to acquire that readiness in its 
current business which he displayed after the advent of his 
party to power in 1861. Seward urged him to greater activity 
in this direction and his friends at home thought he could thus 
remove tlie imputation of his enemies that he was a man of one 
idea. 

But he still felt ill at ease in the Senate. " You may be 
curious, dear William," he wrote Story at Rome, " to know 
how I regard my Senatorial life. Very much as I anticipated. 
My earnest counsel to all would be to avoid public life, unless 
impelled by some overmastering conviction or sentiment which 
could best find utterance in this way. Surely, but for this I 
would not continue in it another day. To what the world calls 
its honors I am indifferent ; its cares and responsibilities are 
weighty and absorbing. I no longer feel at ease with a book ; if 
I take one to read my attention is disturbed by some important 
question which will tramp through my mind. How often I 
think with envy of you at Tiome enjoying letters and art ! jSTo 
such days for me ! At Washington I have much social kindness, 
270 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 271 

beyond anything I have known of late in Boston. With most of 
the Southern men my relations have been pleasant, while with 
Soule I have been on terms of intimate friendship. Here in 
Boston, Hunkerism is very bitter; Webster's friends are im- 
placable. The Courier, which is their paper, has attacked 
Dana and myself; and others like to show their spite also. The 
Webster dementia has not yet passed away." 

To another correspondent he wrote : " On the floor of the 
Senate I sit between Mr. Butler of South Carolina, the early 
suggester of the Fugitive Slave Bill and Mr. Mason of Vir- 
ginia, its final author, with both of whom I have constant and 
cordial intercourse. This experience would teach me if I needed 
the lesson to shun harsh and personal criticism of those from 
whom I differ." But we shall see that this friendly relation did 
not continue long. 

During his absence from Massachusetts, the second conven- 
tion was called to revise the Constitution of the State. The 
existing one was framed in 1780 and a convention had been 
called to revise it in 1820. The proposition for its revision now 
came from and was carried by a coalition of the Free-Soilers 
and the Democrats. Its purpose was to change the basis of 
representation in the Legislature and secure some minor 
changes. The basis of representation was not satisfactory to 
the Free-Soilers and Democrats. As it was, it permitted the 
cities, the centres of Whig strength, to vote for the whole num- 
ber of members to which they were separately entitled. For in- 
stance, Boston was entitled to forty-four members. If any one 
of them w^ere elected, the whole forty-four were reasonably sure 
to be. As the city of Boston was almost certainly WHiig, this 
gave her an immense power in legislation. Certain districts of 
the city were Free-Soil and certain others Democratic. If the 
city was districted both of these parties might hope to elect 
some members. But under the existing pLan of voting a 
general ticket, there was no hope of the Democrats or Free- 
Soilers electing a member, while the Whigs maintained their 
present majority in the city. 

The manner of choosing members of the Convention per- 
mitted districts to elect citizens of the State who were not 
residents of the district. Wilson who was the leading spirit of 
the coalition, and whose influence was felt everywhere, was 
diligent in suggesting the names of prominent Free-Soilers and 
even Democrats, who had no hope of an election in their home 
districts, to other districts and advising their nomination where 
he knew they were strong. This would secure greater certainty 
of their election and likewise the services of abler men in the 



272 I-^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Convention, than might otherwise be chosen. In this way the 
name of Sumner was suggested to the Marshfield district and he 
was nominated and elected in his absence. It was Webster's 
home district and he was elected over Webster's son Fletcher, 
who was the candidate of the Whigs. It was not according to 
Sumner's wish. For the sitting of the Convention would 
occupy his vacation for rest and recreation and he had already 
planned a visit to the West where he had never been. But he 
gave up his cherished trip and consented to serve, feeling that 
it was a duty he owed to his party and his friends. 

In point of ability, the Convention well represented the 
State. Among its members were Rufus Choate, George S. 
Boutwell, Henry Wilson, Henry Dawes, Robert Rantoul, Sr., 
Marcus Morton, afterwards Chief Justice of the State, R. H. 
Dana, Jr., Geo. S. Hillard, Simon Greenleaf, B. F. Butler, N. 
P. Banks, afterwards Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
and others hardly less prominent. Adams was a candidate, but 
was not elected. Palfrey failed of a nomination. It began its 
sessions in Boston on May fourth. 

The work of the Convention upon the different parts of the 
Constitution was apportioned to separate committees. Sumner 
was made chairman of the committee on the Bill of Rights. 
He was also a member of the committee to draft the proposi- 
tions to be submitted to a vote of the people. He prepared a 
clause, providing how other conventions to revise the Constitu- 
tion, in the future, might be called, which was adopted. He 
was diligent in his attendance at the sessions of the Convention 
and in the work of his committees. The committee on the Bill 
of Rights, of which he was made chairman, held twenty ses- 
sions, more, as Sumner believed, than any other committee. 
When its work was completed Sumner made its report to the 
Convention, accompanying it with an address in which he 
reviewed the work of the committee, set forth the reasons for 
the changes they had made and reviewed the origin and history 
of the Bill of Rights as a part of our Constitution. 

In a convention numbering among its members so many 
able speakers it was natural that there should be much good 
speaking. The palm of eloquence in its deliberations, was gen- 
erally conceeded to Rufus Choate, then in the full tide of his 
professional success and ever one of the most accomplished men. 
But Sumner had his admirers. They regretted, however, that 
he did not mix more freely in the miscellaneous debates of the 
Convention and observed that he seemed diffident about speak- 
ing, except on important questions, after the most careful 
preparation. Among experienced legislators, this would be con- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 273 

sidered a virtue, in a young member. He addressed the Con- 
vention in favor of a provision, that in the organization of the 
volunteer military companies of the Commonwealth, there 
should be no distinction on account of color or race. He spoke 
again on the absorbing question of the Convention, the repre- 
sentative system, and its proper basis. The latter speech was 
longer than the limit iixed by the Convention allowed, but by 
unanimous consent, he was permitted to continue. He advo- 
cated the abolition of the general ticket system theretofore al- 
lowed to cities, and thought the members should* be distributed 
to towns according to the number of voters, but where, by reason 
of population, a town was entitled to more than one member, 
the town should be divided into districts so that no voter should 
be allowed to vote for more than one member. The Convention 
favored and adopted the abolition of the general ticket, but 
reduced the representation of the cities below their numerical 
proportion and continued the non-representation of small towns 
during a part of the decade, except when they provided other- 
wise themselves, by a union with other towns. No one ad- 
vocated the existing system. Though the views of Sumner did 
not all prevail, he readily acquiesced in the work of the Conven- 
tion. He especially favored the abolition of the general ticket 
system and regarded this change as a distinct improvement on 
the old practice. 

Among other changes incorporated in the proposed Consti- 
tution, there was a limitation of the judicial term to ten years, 
after the expiration of existing terms. It also proposed the 
election of judges of probate and made other offices, heretofore 
filled by appointment of the Governor of the Commonwealth, 
elective; and it submitted to the people a proposition to forbid 
the appropriation of public money to the support of sectarian 
schools. 

The Convention adjourned on the first day of August, 1853. 
It remained for its work to be approved by a vote of the people. 
At first this seemed to be easy of accomplishment. The Free- 
Soilers held their convention and nominated Wilson for Gov- 
ernor and there was hope of his election, by a coalition with the 
Democrats. The campaign opened vigorously, Sumner entered 
into it with earnestness. He spoke for the Constitution and 
Free-Soilers, to large audiences at seventeen places — 'Spring- 
field, Lowell, Fall River, Worcester, Marshfield, among the rest, 
— closing at Boston. His audiences were large and attentive, 
and by reason of the constitutional element in the discussion, he 
was heard more than he had been, by men of other parties. In 
this, the Constitutional Convention was an advantage to him. 



274 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Both in the Convention and on the stump this fall, he extended 
his acquaintance and made the impression upon his hearers 
that he was not only a reformer, but a sagacious and practical 
man of affairs and a scholarly gentleman, not a mere crank, on 
the slavery question, as he had been held up by the Whigs. His 
speech on the stump satisfied his hearers. We are told that he 
usually spoke two hours and a half and that his audiences con- 
tinued with him to the end. 

As the campaign progressed, however, dangers appeared for 
the success of the Constitution and the coalition. Adams who 
had been defeated and Palfrey who had not been made a can- 
didate, both came out against the Constitution ; the former in 
a speech and the latter in a public letter, which was reprinted 
and sent broadcast over the State. They were both well known 
as Free-Soilers. The Whigs had already declared in their 
platform against it, and this unexpected defection encouraged 
them ; on the eve of the election, Caleb Cushing who had been 
made the Attorney-General in President Pierce's cabinet, also 
appeared in a letter, in which the Democrats were given to 
understand that there must be no more of the coalition with 
Free-Soilers, that this heresy must be trampled out and that 
any violation of this edict meant exclusion from office under 
the new administration. The Catholics were against the Con- 
stitution because of their threatened exclusion from a division 
of the school tax and the cities because of the reduction of their 
representation. This was altogether more than the Constitu- 
tion could bear and the coalition went down with it, under 
more than five thousand majority, as against ten thousand by 
which they had carried the proposition for a Convention. The 
Whigs elected the Governor and the Legislature. In their mad 
glee over the result they went so far as to open still wider their 
breach with the anti-slavery men. Little did they then think 
that the next election would witness their utter defeat, soon to 
be followed by the breaking up of the party and the placing of 
Wilson, the defeated candidate of the Free-Soilers for Governor, 
in the Senate as Sumner's colleague. 

Sumner's position was more isolated than ever. He was de- 
nominated a Senator without a party and he was called upon to 
resign his seat because he was without support among the people 
of his State. His friends were told that their party was dead 
and that they themselves were dupes. They were met in the 
streets by cold looks and by taunting treatment. Wilson felt it 
keenly, by reason of his prominence in the movement and to 
avoid the reception he met with, on the crowded thoroughfares, 
he chose the less frequented streets to reach his place of busi- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 275 

ness. Boston was especially intolerant of the new party and 
showed much ill-feeling towards its leaders. At the close of 
the Constitutional Convention, at a dinner given in commemo- 
ration of the embarkation of the Pilgrims, Sumner had given 
expression to his own feeling of isolation in the response to his 
toast. After briefly referring to the Puritan triumph under 
Cromwell and their subsequent weight of poverty and exile 
and the still later influence of their example in America, he 
said : 

" And these outcasts, despised in their own day by the proud 
and great, are the men whom we have met in this goodly num- 
ber to celebrate, — not for any victory of war, — not for any 
triumph of discovery, science, learning or eloquence, — not for 
worldly success of any kind. How poor are all these things by 
the side of that divine virtue which amidst the reproach, the 
obloquy and the hardness of the world made them hold fast to 
Freedom and Truth ! Sir, if the honors of this day are not a 
mockery, if they do not expend themselves in mere self-gratula- 
tion, if they are a sincere homage to the character of the Pil- 
grims, — and I cannot suppose otherwise, — then it is well for us 
to be here. Standing on Plymouth Eock at their great anni- 
versary, we cannot fail to be elevated by their example. We see 
clearly what it has done for the world, and what it has done for 
their fame. No pusillanimous soul here to-day will declare 
their self-sacrifice, their deviation from received opinions, their 
unquenchable thirst for liberty an error or illusion. From 
gushing multitudinous hearts we now thank these lowly men 
that they dared to be true and brave. Conformity or compro- 
mise might, perhaps, have purchased for them a profitable peace, 
but not peace of mind ; it might have secured place and power, 
but not repose ; it might have opened present shelter, but not a 
home in history and in men's hearts till time shall be no more. 
All must confess the true grandeur of their example, while in 
vindication of a cherished principle, they stood alone, against 
tlie madness of men, against the law of the land, against their 
king. Better the despised Pilgrim, a fugitive for freedom, than 
the halting politician, forgetful of principle ' with a Senate at 
his heels '." 

Even this expression, touching as it seems now, in the 
light of his position, was made the occasion of criticism. 
Nothing an anti-slavery man could say, then satisfied the carp- 
ing apologist of slavery. But John G. Wliittier, always ready 
with encouragement for the good, saw Sumner's speech differ- 
ently and wrote that its tone and bearing were unmistakable 
and yet unobjectionable, though when he first read the toast 



276 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

assigned to him,— The Senate of the United States,— he 
thought it a very unpromising text ! 

But events were fast crowding on that were to work a revolu- 
tion in public sentiment even in conservative Boston. Sumner 
was in his seat at the opening of the next session of Congress. 
On the 14th day of December, 1853, a bill was introduced in 
the Senate to organize the Territory of Nebraska. It con- 
tained no reference to slavery; but the Territory was com- 
prehended in that from which the Missouri Compromise of 
1820 forever excluded slavery. It lay north of longitude 3G° 
30'. The bill was referred to the Committee on Territories of 
which Stephen A. Douglas was chairman. On the 4th day 
of January, 1854, the Committee reported this bill back, but 
with an amendment, declaring that the States formed out of 
this Territory should be admitted into the Union with or with- 
out slavery as they should desire. An amendment was offered 
to this bill by a Kentucky member, that the existing prohibition 
of slavery should not be construed so as to apply to the Terri- 
tory contemplated by this act or any other Territory of the 
United States, but that the citizens of the several States or 
Territories should be at liberty to take and hold their slaves 
within any of the Territories of the United States or of the 
States to be formed therefrom. Sumner thereupon offered an 
amendment that nothing in this act should be construed to 
abrogate the Act of 1820, whereby slavery was forever prohib- 
ited in that territory. On January 24th, Douglas from the 
Committee submitted a new bill as a substitute, whereby the 
Territory was divided into two, Kansas and Nebraska, and it 
was formally declared that the prohibition of slavery in them 
w^as superseded by the Compromise of 1850. Thus the question, 
suggested by Sumner's amendment, was squarely made, whether 
the Compromise of 1820 was to be declared repealed and all the 
territory of the Ignited States, comprehended in the Louisiana 
Purchase, was to be opened to slavery. 

This was a startling proposition presented to the Free States 
and to the opponents of slavery. The compact that was made 
bv the Slave States, to secure the admission of Missouri, with 
slavery, was now proposed to be repudiated at the very time 
when it was becoming effective in favor of freedom, by reason 
of the rush of emigration Westward. It had stood as one of 
the " Landmarks of Freedom " for a generation. People had 
come to regard it as one of the impassible barriers that had been 
set to slavery. But slavery to which concession after concession 
had been made, to secure these compromises, proposed to make 
a complete repudiation and having received the benefits of the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 277 

eomtract to repudiate the burdens it had assumed to get them. 
It proposed to make the territory hitherto reserved to Freedom 
all slave. The people of the Free States paused and asked 
themselves if such a thing could be true. 

Douglas was a bold and enterprising man. Having once 
committed himself to the proposition he pressed it vigorously. 
The bill was introduced in the Senate on January 23. On the 
next day when it had just been laid upon the desks of the 
Senators, he pressed its consideration on the Senate, and only 
after debate was it postponed till January 30, six days, when 
it was to be the special order, till brought to a vote. This was 
haste. Anti-slavery men felt that a matter of such importance 
should be considered with more deliberation. The country had 
no opportunity in so short a time to be made acquainted with 
its provisions. But its advocates did not wish a general dis- 
cussion of it, believing they had nothing to gain by such a 
course ; while its opponents were determined the people should 
understand it. 

Sumner and Chase, at once issued an address to the coun- 
try, signed by themselves and a few Representatives, styling 
themselves Independent Democrats. It was written by Chase 
and set forth, in strong language, the danger of the hour and 
the necessity for prompt action on the part of the people to 
prevent their Representatives in Congress from passing the 
bill and thus consummating another encroachment of slavery. 
The address was circulated largely and did much to awaken 
the people to the importance of the occasion. But the country 
is large and it takes time to reach the people widely scattered 
in their homes and impress upon them the necessity for action. 
With inferior mail facilities it took more time then than now. 
The people awoke slowly but the gravity of the situation im- 
pressed thinking men. It brought Abraham Lincoln from the 
retirement of his practice as a country lawyer. As the debate 
proceeded in Congress, the country became deeply interested. 
In some sections the ministers by agreement on a certain sab- 
bath, preached a sermon against it in their churches. It was 
thus made a moral question and as much as possible divorced 
from party connections. Only a short time before the country 
had been assured that the compromise of 1850 adjusted the 
slavery question forever and yet witliin a few months the 
South was presenting, with increased boldness, and demanding 
greater concessions than ever before. Thoughtful people might 
well ask themselves what all these compromises were worth 
procured at the expense of so much trouble and contention. 
In opening the debate, Douglas referred in severe terms to the 



2Y8 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

address that had been issued by the " Independent Democrats " 
and directed much of his speecli, coarse in its terms, to Sumner 
and Chase, who had been the only members of the Senate to 
sign it. Douglas was recognized as a candidate for the Presi- 
dency and his conduct was supposed to be influenced by his 
effort to get the votes of the South. As soon as he closed, Chase 
was on his feet to reply to the personal references to himself. 
He was followed by Sumner who spoke briefly only admitting 
his responsibility for the address, calling attention to the im- 
portance of the measure and protesting against the " galloping 
speed " with which it was being pressed for passage, before the 
people could be heard. But both Sumner and Chase reserved 
their real speech on the question till a later time. Thus opened 
the great Nehrasla Delate whicli was to occupy the attention 
of the country for months and whose ultimate issue was to be 
the Civil War. 

Three weeks later, Sumner spoke again and fully on the ques- 
tion. At the outset, in his speech, he declined to make any 
answer to the epithets Douglas had used towards him and Chase. 
The issue contained in the bill he thought too great to be 
dwarfed by any personal consideration. Nor would he take 
time to argue the question whether the prohibition in the law 
of 1820, had been reijealed by the law of 1850. He merely 
suggested that the compromise of 1850 did not pretend in 
terms to touch this prohibition, that the Territories it re- 
lated to, Utah and New Mexico, were not to be affected during 
their existence as Territories, but when they came to be admit- 
ted as States ; that during all the discussion of the act of 1850 
no one mentioned it as affecting this Ten'itory ; and it expressly 
said it was not to change the resolution annexing Texas, where- 
in the prohibition of the Missouri Compromise was expressly 
reafHrmed. 

But Sumner made two points in his speech explicitly and he 
enforced them with all his power; First, This bill was an in- 
fraction of solemn obligations assumed beyond recall by the 
South on the admission of Missouri as a slave State ; Second it 
was an unjustifiable departure from the original Anti-slave 
policy of our fathers. 

In establishing his first proposition, he went at length into 
the history of the Compromise of 1820 to show that it was dis- 
tinctly a measure originating with the Slave States and voted 
for by their Representatives, in both Houses to secure what 
they sought, the admission of Missouri as a slave State. They 
plighted their solemn faith that the covenant then made by 
them should be faithfully kept. On the part of the North, it 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER. 279 

had been; while the South now refused to execute it. He 
scouted the idea that it was not a bindinfj contract. He said a 
subtile German had declared that he could find heresies in the 
Lord's Prayer and he believed it was only in this spirit that any 
flaw could be found in the obligations of this compact. 

In support of his second proposition, he followed the same 
course of reasoning that he had in his speech on the Fugitive 
Slave Law, but pursued it with less particularity than before. 
He insisted that there had been three stages in our National 
development, first, when the policy of the Government had been 
all for Freedom ; second, when only half so ; third, when all 
was grasped by Slavery, that as late as 1820, John W. Taylor a 
Eepresentative from New York, who openly advocated the pro- 
hibition of slavery in the Territories and its restriction in Mis- 
souri was elected Speaker of the House, while such a man now 
was disqualified for a National office. He insisted that only a 
man of known pliancy to slavery, could now be elected to such 
a place. 

With Douglas in his mind as a candidate for the Presidency, 
he said: "The race of men, 'white slaves of the North,' de- 
scribed and despised by a Southern Statesman, is not yet 
extinct there. It is one of the melancholy tokens of the power 
of slavery, under our political system and especially through 
the operations of the National Government, that it loosens and 
destroys the character of Northern men, exerting its subtile in- 
fluences even at a distance, — like the black magnetic mountain 
in the Arabian story, under whose irresistible attraction, the 
iron bolts which held together the strong timbers of the stately- 
ship, floating securely on the distant wave, were drawn out 
till the whole fell apart, and became a disjointed wreck. Alas ; 
too often those principles which give consistency, individuality, 
and form to the Northern character, which render it staunch, 
strong and seaworthy, which bind it together as with iron, are 
sucked out, one by one, like the bolts of the ill-fated vessel, 
and from the miserable loosened fragments is formed that 
human anomaly, a Northern man with Southern principles. 
Sir, no such man can speak for the North." 

The term of Sumner's colleague, John Davis, had expired and 
Edward Everett had been elected to his place. He came to the 
Senate with a wide reputation, for scholarship and graceful 
oratory. As President of Harvard College, where Sumner's 
affections were deeply rooted, he and Everett had been brought 
much into contact and had enjoyed friendly relations. But 
there was a wide difference between them. Sumner represented 
the extreme anti-slavery men of the States, while Everett was 



280 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the champion of the aristocratic, conservative and commercial 
Whigs. He was the friend and editor and biographer of Daniel 
Webster. He was not of an aggressive temperament. He had 
been educated for the ministry and deprecated controversy ; 
was a man before whom Disunion could be held up with all 
its terrors and he, like Douglas, had hopes of the Presidency. 
Sumner and Everett probably came together, with the deter- 
mination unexpressed, that there should be no break between 
them and yet no intimacy. At the beginning of the session 
and of his term, Everett had objected, in the Whig caucus, to 
Sumner receiving a place on any committee of the Senate, say- 
ing that, while he wished to continue his friendly relations with 
him, he was unwilling to see any action that would recognize 
him as a Whig. Sumner was accordingly excluded, though 
Seward and Chase were both given places. 

After some effort to discover the feeling of his constituents 
as to the Nebraska Bill, Everett had opposed it by a speech in 
the Senate, not vigorously but in well-turned phrase. He reit- 
erated the same argument that Webster had made on the Com- 
promise of 1850, as to California. He could not see that the 
legislation was vital to Nebraska, for, whatever the fate of the 
bill, he thought the climatic and physical conditions were such 
as to forever exclude slavery from this Territory. 

Sumner was prepared for this argument. In answering him 
he said he felt obliged kindly but most strenuously to dissent 
from this view. There was Missouri, he said, with Illinois on 
the east and Nebraska on the west, all covering nearly the same 
spaces of latitude, and resembling each other in soil, climate 
and natural production. But mark the contrast ! By the ordi- 
nance of the North West Territory Illinois became a free state, 
while Missouri had more than eighty-seven thousand slaves. 
Climatic and physical conditions had not determined the dif- 
ference, but the laws of man; and the simple question was 
whether Nebraska should be preserved in the condition of Illi- 
nois or surrendered to that of Missouri. 

Sumner felt that the passage of this bill was meant to open to 
slavery not merely Kansas and Nebraska, but all tlie Territories 
comprised within the Louisiana Purchase, in other words, all be- 
tween the British possessions on the North and the Rocky ]\Ioun- 
tains on the west. In this view it concerned an immense region 
larger than the original Thirteen States, vying in extent with 
all the Free States, "stretching over prairie, field and forest, 
interlaced by silver streams, skirted by protecting mountains, 
and constituting the heart of the North American continent, 
only a little smaller than the three great European countries 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 281 

combined, — Italy, Spain and France — each of which in succes- 
sion had dominated over the globe." It was for such a territory, 
he said, they were legislating and establishing rules of polity 
which would determine its future character. According to the 
existing law this territory was guarded against slavery by the 
law of 1820, enacted preparatory to the admission of Missouri 
as a State. It was now proposed to set aside this prohibition. 

This sweeping aspect of the bill impressed the people of the 
North. True the bill only applied to Kansas and Nebraska in 
terms, but if the prohibition of 1830, applying to them, was 
destroyed, by the act of 1850, it must be destroyed as to every 
acre of land which the law of 1820 protected. So that notwith- 
standing the haste with which Douglas had pressed its passage, 
the bill continued before Congress, with little interruption, for 
six months. Eemonstrances against it came from various 
sources and were presented to both Houses. The clergy 
preached against it and held meetings to devise means to defeat 
it. Those of New England sent a memorial signed by more 
than three thousand ministers. It Avas presented to the Senate 
by Edward Everett, Sumner's colleague. It awakened some 
feeling, — Douglas and Mason especially taking exception to 
this interference of the ministry with political affairs. They 
criticised the form of the remonstrance, which commenced with 
the words, " In the name of Almighty God and in His pres- 
ence." 

When the bill came up for final passage in the Senate on the 
25th day of May, Everett had tendered his resignation as Sena- 
tor and was detained from the session by sickness. In his 
absence, late at night, it fell to Sumner's lot to present 
separate, remonstrances from some citizens of New York, 
from the Society of Friends, from the Baptists of Mich- 
igan and Indiana and one hundred and twenty-five remon- 
strances from clergymen of different denominations in New 
England. He had already done all he could to prevent the pas- 
sage of the bill, had opposed it from the beginning, had ap- 
pealed to his colleagues, reasoned with them, spoken against it, 
appealed to the people to exert their influence with their Rep- 
resentatives against it. But with all his efforts, its passage now 
seemed certain. Standing almost alone, with the darkness of 
night without and the consummation of this wrong before him, 
knowing that nothing he could say or do would avert it, his 
words had a sad and almost prophetic meaning : 
_ " It is now midnight," he said. " At this late hour of a ses- 
sion drawn out to unaccustomed length, I shall not fatigue 
the Senate by argument. There is a time for all things and 



283 I^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the time for argument has passed. The determination of the 
majority is fixed; but it is not more fixed than mine. The 
bill, which they sustain, I oppose. On a former occasion I met 
it by argument which though often attacked in debate, still 
stands unanswered and unanswerable. At the present time I 
am admonished that I must be content with a few words of 
earnest protest against the consummation of a great wrong. 
Duty to myself and also to the honored Commonwealth of 
which I find myself the sole representative in this immediate 
exigency, will not allow me to do less. 

" But I have a special duty which I would not omit. Here 
on my desk are remonstrances against the passage of this bill, 
some placed in my hands since the commencement of the debate 
to-day, and I desire that these voices direct from the people 
should be heard. With the permission of the Senate I will offer 
them now." * * * 

" With pleasure and pride I now do this service and at this 
last stage, interpose the sanctity of the pulpits of New England 
to arrest an alarming outrage, believing that the remonstrants 
from their eminent character and influence as representatives 
of the intelligence and conscience of the country, are peculiarly 
entitled to be heard, — and further, believing that their remon- 
strances while respectful in form, embody just conclusions 
both of opinion and fact. Like them, Sir, t do not hesitate to 
protest against the bill yet pending before the Senate as a 
great moral wrong, as a breach of public faith, as a measure 
full of danger to the peace, and even existence of our Union. 
And, Sir, believing in God as I profoundly do, I cannot doubt 
that the opening of an immense region, to so great an enormity 
as slavery, is calculated to draw down upon our country His 
righteous judgments." 

He then referred to the criticism of the clergymen for taking 
part in the controversy and of the wording of their remon- 
strance. He reminded Senators that there was a time when 
New England was governed more by the prayers of the clergy- 
men than by the acts of the Legislature and that in remon- 
strating " in the name of Almighty God," they only obeyed the 
scriptural injunction, " do all in the name of the Lord." 

"Sir," he continued, "the hill you are about to pass is at 
once the worst and best upon which Congress ever acted. * * * 

" It is the worst bill inasmuch as it is a present victory of 
Slavery. In a Christian land and in an age of civilization, a 
time-honored statute of Freedom is struck down, opening the 
way to all the countless woes and wrongs of human bondage. 
Among the crimes of history, another is soon to be recorded 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



283 



which no tears can blot out and which in better days will be 
read with universal shame. * * * 

" There is another side to which I gladly turn. Sir, it is the 
best bill on which Congress ever acted ; for it annuh all past 
compromises with Slavery and makes any future compromises 
impossible. Thus it puts Freedom and Slavery face to face and 
bids them grapple. Wlio can doubt the result ? It opens wide 
the door of the future, when at last, there will really be a 
North, and the Slave-Power will be broken, — when this 
wretched Despotism will cease to dominate over our Govern- 
ment, no longer impressing itself upon everything at home and 
abroad, — when the National Government will be divorced in 
every way from Slavery, and according to the true intention of 
our fathers, Freedom will be established by Congress every- 
where, at least beyond the local limits of the States. * * * 

'^ Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you commit. Joy- 
fully I welcome the promises of the future." 

As Sumner had predicted, the bill passed by a large majority 
in each House. He had solemnly warned them : " Not in this 
way can peace come. In passing such a bill as is now threat- 
ened, you scatter from this dark midnight hour, no seeds of 
harmony and good-will, but broad cast through the land, 
dragon's teeth which haply may not spring up in direful crops 
of armed men, yet, I am assured will fructify in civil strife 
and feud." 

This prediction seemed to be fulfilled sooner than he ex- 
pected. On May twenty-fourth, Anthony Burns, a. negro was 
seized in Boston as a fugitive slave on the claim of a citizen 
of Virginia and was confined by the Marshal in one of the 
rooms of the Court House. On the evening of May twenty- 
sixth, after a meeting of Abolitionists in Faneuil Hall, a 
mob attacked the guards and one of them, James Batchelder, 
was killed. The affair created a great sensation in Washington, 
where the impression made by Sumner's speech on the public 
mind wrought up over the consideration of the bill, was still 
fresh. By some of the frenzied defenders of Slavery, the 
tragedy in Boston was attributed to the influence of Sumner's 
speech upon his constituents. A moment's thought would have 
shown that there could be no connection between the two 
events; for the speech was made so late that the report of it 
could not have reached Boston, by the means of communica- 
tion they then had. 

But Slavery was unreasonable. It was entering upon that 
career of madness which was to end in its destruction. Feeling 
was running high. Threats of violence and lynching were 



284 ^i^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

freely made against Sumner and the editors of some of the 
city papers were evidently not caring if this result did follow. 
They held him up as an example of the mercy of the slave- 
holders who permitted him to go unharmed on the streets of 
Washington, while by his speeches in the Senate, he incited 
mobs to riot and murder, if a citizen of the South went to 
Boston to reclaim his property. They told him if legal rights 
could only be secured at the point of the bayonet in Boston, 
he would have to walk more circumspectly in Washington. 
The suggestion was made that the feeling against him and 
"his infamous gang might be allowed to descend to personal 
violence." He was insulted and threatened in the restaurant 
where he took his meals. A conspiracy was proposed in 
Alexandria to seize him as a hostage for the return of the 
slave Burns, still in Boston, to inflict personal violence upon 
him, to put a bullet through his head ; and he was warned 
to leave Washington. But Sumner disregarded them. If 
harm came to him, he quietly said to solicitous friends, it 
■would find him at his post. 

Dispatches from Washington to the New York Times and 
other papers communicated to friends his danger. They were 
apprehensive lest the feeling they knew the death of Batchelder 
created, would be visited on him. Joseph R. Hawley, then a 
young editor of Hartford, since a General in the war of the 
Rebellion and a Governor and U. S. Senator of Connecticut, 
offered to go on to Wasliington and be at hand armed and ready 
to protect him, if violence should be offered. But Sumner 
declined. 

A month later a bill was introduced in the Senate to pension 
the widow of Batchelder. Sumner and Seward submitted a 
minority report against it, which was prepared by Sumner. 
Batchelder was an ordinary truckman who had three times 
volunteered his services to assist the Marshal in executing the 
Fugitive Slave Law. The minority report insisted that there 
was no precedent for a pension except for service in the army 
or navy, in neither of which he was, and that none should be 
granted to persons injured in the execution of this law. But 
the bill carried. 

One of the exciting battles in the anti-slavery war was ended 
with the vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Apparently it 
had been fought to no purpose. Slavery, as usual, had been 
successful. True there had been an increase in the number 
of anti-slavery votes, both in the House and Senate, but what 
did Slavery care; she had never counted her votes the same, 
from year to year. The result in this respect was not unusual. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



285 



Nor was it unusual that she had to fight for her victory. She 
had been doing this for years; and she had fought no harder 
now than for the Compromise of 1850. And she had become so 
strong that she could be insulting to her opponents and yet 
successful. She had reached her highest power in extent 
of territory. 

And yet, with all this, she was weaker than she had been for 
many years. The anti-slavery men had made a distinct ad- 
vance, not in a material way, but in the hold they had gained 
on the popular mind. At last conservative and thinking men 
were becoming convinced that the slave power must be con- 
trolled. The mercantile classes of Boston were accepting this 
view. As evidence of it, a petition for the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave Law, placed in the Merchants Exchange, in Boston, had 
received nearly three thousand signatures, many of them of 
persons who had been vigorously opposing Sumner's work. 
And Massachusetts had sent to the Senate, to fill the place of 
Edward Everett, who had resigned, Julius Eockwell; and for 
the first time Sumner had a colleague who would vote with him. 
There were favorable signs also in other States. The admin- 
istration party had been defeated in the President's own State, 
New Hampshire. Connecticut had sent a Free-Soiler to the 
IT. S. Senate. Anti-slavery men had grown largely in numbers 
in the ISTorth. So the fight that Sumner and Chase had led in 
defence of the Missouri Compromise was not in vain. 

The feeling against slavery having been once aroused was not 
so easily allayed. When the Merchants Exchange petition 
was brought from Boston, for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law, it was presented in the Senate by Eockwell and, after 
reading it, with a few remarks, he moved that it be referred to 
the Judiciary Committee. A controversy at once arose which 
continued for some days. Here was another evidence of the 
distinct advance of anti-slavery sentiment in Congress. In 
the Senate such petitions had often been treated uncere- 
moniously; frequently, by motion, without reading and with- 
out reference to any committee, being laid upon the table, 
never to be heard of again. With all the feeling that this one 
provoked, no attempt was made to stifle it now. 

In the House, there had been in force what was known as 
the " Gag Rule." It provided that all petitions on the subject 
of slavery should be referred to the appropriate committees 
without reading. Year after year, John Quincy Adams had 
moved the repeal of this rule and had insisted on debating 
the question. Year after year he had been defeated. But 
defeat had no terrors for him, when he believed he was right. 



386 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

If the rule was continued the next year he rencAved the fight 
to repeal it ; and it was at last repealed. The friends of Free- 
dom could hail these things as the light of returning day. 

After the petition presented by Eockwell had been read 
and the motion made to refer it to the Judiciary Committee, 
Jones of Tennessee took the floor. The petition showed that 
not only had the apprehension of Burns been resisted, with 
fatal results, but that there had been no diminution of the 
popular feeling against the law and that public sentiment was 
becoming stronger than ever in favor of its repeal and was 
demanding it as essential to the public peace in the ISTorth. 
Jones insisted that such petitions and the speeches that sup- 
ported them were inciting people over the country to riots and 
the shedding of innocent blood, while the real authors of the 
trouble were keeping themselves at a safe distance. This 
brought Eockwell to his feet in defence of the petition. He 
was followed by Jones again, and Broadhead of Pennsylvania. 
Sumner and Massachusetts were the especial objects of their 
invective. Sumner's midnight speech, at the close of the debate 
on the Kansas-jSTebraska Bill still angered them. They in- 
sisted that such petitions and speeches would soon end in the 
disruption of the Union, and that the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave Law would have the same tendency. 

Sumner promptly replied. He dismissed the claim that the 
repeal of this law would destroy the Union, by saying that if 
the Union depended for its existence on any such poor pretext 
it ought to continue no longer. He admitted that many of 
the signers of this petition were supporters of the Compromise 
of 1850; and he reminded Senators that the change as shown 
was only typical of the change in the community. Once the 
upholders of the law, they now, after seeing its workings de- 
manded its repeal. Eepresentatives of the conservative, 
mercantile classes had placed themselves in the front of this 
movement. So far as the speakers had arraigned him per- 
sonally he said he did not care to speak. He had always been 
opposed to this law openly and sincerely and he was opposed to 
it still and he could only repeat what he had often said in 
giving his reasons for its repeal. But these were considerations 
personal to himself. For Massachusetts who had been attacked 
with him he did not feel the same indifference. He referred 
briefly to her record in the Eevolutionary War and reminded 
them that near this very Court House, where Burns was con- 
fined, the first blood had been spilt in the conflict for Indepen- 
dence and that among those early victims was one of the de- 
spised race. He insisted that the Senate receive the petition 



J 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNEH 287 

and he warned them that there was a plant that was said to 
grow when trodden upon. By denying the right of petition, 
they provoked the very spirit they would repress. 

Sumner's speech was followed by a debate, seldom equalled 
in anger and excitement. Butler of South Carolina, Mason of 
Virginia, Clay of Alabama, Mallory, Dixon and Petit, the most 
extreme apologists of slavery, all took part. They were 
especially venomous towards Sumner who thus far, while he 
had not spared slavery, had declined to exchange personalities 
with its advocates. They probably thought they could attack 
him with impunity and bully him into silence. All sorts of 
epithets were applied to his speech. 

Butler called it a " species of rhetoric intended to feed the 
fires of fanaticism in his own State " ; "a fourth of July 
oration ", " vapid rhetoric " and added : " If sectional agitation 
is to be fed, by such sentiments, such displays and such things 
as come from the honorable gentleman near me, I say Ave ought 
not to be in a common confederacy, and we should be better 
off without it." 

He admitted that the return of fugitive slaves had perhaps 
better have been left to the State than to the United States 
officers. But he doubted whether, if it had been left to the 
States, they would have returned the fugitives. And he turned 
to Eockwell and asked if it were so left, after trial by jury or 
other proper mode, Massachusetts would return a fugitive. 
Rockwell made no answer. He thereupon turned to Sumner 
and with a good deal of impetuosity, demanded: "Will this 
honorable Senator tell me that he will do it?" To which 
Sumner replied: "Does the honorable Senator ask me if I 
would personally Join in sending a fellow man into bondage? 
Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing? " The an- 
swer angered Butler and he retorted: "You stand in my 
presence a co-equal Senator and tell me that it is a dog's office , 
to execute the Constitution of the United States." To which 
Sumner replied: "I recognize no such obligation," meaning 
that he felt under no obligation to assist in the return of a 
fugitive slave. But the Southerners insisted on construing 
what he had said, as meaning that he, a Senator under oath to 
obey the Constitution, recognized no obligation to obey it. At 
best with his words capable of the construction he gave them 
and Sumner so explaining them, their conduct in persistently 
misinterpreting them was mere pettifogging. This incident 
gave the personal turn to the debate. 

Mason followed Butler, declaring that "the dignity of the 
American Senate had been rudely, wantonly, grossly assailed 



288 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

by a Senator from Massachusetts," denouncing Sumner for 
having had the hardihood to call " a gentleman from Virginia," 
because he had gone to Boston to recover his property, " a slave 
hunter " and bragged that the law had done its office in 
Boston and this too in the presence of a mob, incited by Sum- 
ner and his associates, who sat in the Senate and kept them- 
selves aloof from danger, while they excited others to treason 
and deserved for themselves a traitor's doom. Then turning to 
Sumner, he broke out : " Why, Sir, am I speaking of a fanatic, 
one whose reason is dethroned? Can such a one expect to make 
impressions upon the American people, from his vapid, vulgar 
declamation here, accompanied by his declarations that he 
would violate his oath now recently taken ? " 

These gentlemen who were ringing the changes on the viola- 
tion of oaths were soon to be conspicuous in Rebellion against 
the Constitution and laws of the country, they had sworn to 
support. 

They were followed in the debate by Petit of Indiana, who 
consumed the balance of the day arguing that the view taken 
by the Abolitionists of the Declaration of Independence, " made 
it a self evident lie," etc., and illustrated his argument to 
prove that all men could not be equal, by saying that Sumner 
was no more the equal of Webster than " the jackal was the 
equal of the lion or the buzzard the equal of the eagle." The 
President of the Senate twice interposed, to call him to order. 
Before he finished his speech the Senate adjourned for the day 
and the consideration of the question went over till June 
twenty-eighth, the intervening day being occupied with other 
business. Petit then concluded, affecting to believe that Sum- 
ner had declared he did not regard the sanctity of his oath. 

When Petit closed a motion was made to lay on the table, but 
Sumner claimed the privilege of answering the assaults that had 
been made upon him. Other Senators also opposed these efforts 
to stifle the debate and the motion was lost. Mallory of Florida 
and Clay of Alabama then both spoke in the same vein, gibing 
at Sumner as holding himself irresponsible to the obligations of 
either law or honor, referring to him as a " miscreant," or " a 
serpent" who ought to be " robbed of his fangs." 

When Sumner gained the floor he declined to bandy per- 
sonalities. He did not mention them except to suggest that 
for the honor of the Senate, such exhibitions should not occur. 
But he said he was reminded by them, as he was sure other 
Senators were, of the remark of Jefferson, that a man must be 
a prodigy, who could retain his manners and morals undepraved 
by the sight of the commerce between master and slave. While 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 280 

these Senators were speaking he was sure " the Senate chamber 
must have seemed to them a plantation well stocked with slaves, 
over which the lash and the overseer had full swing." He 
replied to Mason's complaint of his calling the master of 
Burns " a slave hunter," by saying that a blush was the sign of 
virtue and he was glad to see one, which even his plantation 
manners could not conceal, mantling the cheek of the honor- 
able Senator. 

Sumner objected to the comparison Senators made of the 
South with the North, in the Revolution, and the claim they 
made that Independence had been won by the Southern States. 
He insisted this was not the first time they had made such com- 
parisons. Butler at this point arose and said he had never done 
such a thing or attempted it, that he thought such talk in bad 
taste. But Sumner, begging his pardon, insisted that he had 
profusely dealt in such comparisons and referred him to an 
instance of it. Butler admitted that he had made the statement 
and undertook to explain it. Sumner proceeded to show that 
of the Continental troops in the Eevolution, the North had con- 
tributed 172,465, but the South only 59,33G, in other words 3 
to 1 ; while of militia the ratio was 4 to 1 and that this disparity 
was caused by slavery ; it having been necessary for the citizens 
of the South to remain at home, to prevent uprisings among 
the negroes; that Massachusetts alone had contributed 83,063 
troops, or more than all the South together, and thirteen times 
more than South Carolina. 

Sumner had grown tired of the too boastful spirit of the 
South towards the North. Parting with Butler, he said : " I 
had almost forgotten his associate-leader in the wanton personal 
assault upon me in this long debate, — I mean the veteran 
Senator from Virginia (Mason) who is now directly in my eye. 
With imperious look, and in the style of Sir Forcible Feeble, 
that Senator undertakes to call in question my statement, that 
the Fugitive Slave Act denies the writ of Habeas Corpus; and 
in doing this, he assumes a superiority for himself, which, per- 
mit me to tell him now in this presence, nothing in him can war- 
rant. Sir, I claim little for myself; but I shrink in no respect 
from any comparison with the Senator, veteran though he be. 
Sitting near him as has been my fortune since I had the honor 
of a seat in this chamber, I have come to know something of his 
conversation, something of his manners, something of his at- 
tainments, something of his abilities, something of his char- 
acter, ay, sir, and something of liis associations; and while I 
would not disparage him in any of these respects, I feel that I 
do not exalt myself unduly, that I do not claim too much for 



290 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the position which I hold or the name which I have established, 
when I openly declare, that as a Senator of Massachusetts, and 
as a man, I place myself at every point in unhesitating com- 
parison with that honorable assailant. And to his peremptory 
assertion, that the Fugitive Slave Act does not deny the Habeas 
Corpus, I oppose ray assertion, peremptory as his own, that it 
does, — and there I leave that issue." 

The personal character of the debate will be seen from these 
quotations. They illustrate the intensity of the feeling that 
existed in Congress on the slavery question and the difficulties 
with which anti-slavery men contended. It is important for 
the reader to understand these personal encounters of Sumner 
and the part he took in them for it was for what he said of 
Mason and Butler and South Carolina, that Brooks attempted 
to justify his assault on Sumner in the Senate Chamber, at a 
later day. 

The debate being closed, the motion for a reference of the 
petition to the Judiciary Committee carried. But this Com- 
mittee reported against the prayer of the petition and the 
Senate adopted their report. Later in the session Sumner 
souglit to introduce a bill for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law, but the Senate after much wrangling, refused him leave. 
No progress was made in anti-slavery legislation but the anti- 
slavery vote in the Senate had increased from four to ten. 

The pro-slavery members were not accustomed to such oppo- 
sition as Sumner was making to their schemes of territorial ex- 
pansion. He had been elected as an opponent of slavery. He 
had no political ambition, unless it was to link his name with 
the destruction of this institution. The ordinary baits the 
South had been using, political preferments, such as the Presi- 
dency, had no attraction for him. An incident related by him- 
self illustrates his feeling. During this session an eminent 
supporter of tlie Nebraska Bill said to him : " I would not go 
through all that you do on this nigger question for all the offices 
and honors of the country." To which Sumner promptly 
replied, " Nor would I, — for all the offices and honors of the 
country." In relating it, he added : " Not in such things are 
the inducements to this warfare. If I have been able to do 
aught in any respect not unworthy, it is because I thought 
rather of those commanding duties which are above office and 
honor." 

But he had a strong desire for fame of a more enduring sort 
than office gave. His eiforts in the Senate were always pre- 
pared as for a great occasion, he put aside personalities which 
appealed to the galleries but he felt there was nothing to be lost 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



291 



by telling his Southern colleagues he was as good as they were 
and would brook no airs of superiority. It was a manly self- 
respect he asserted and it found an answering response at 
home. 

It was after this debate that Whittier wro<te the poem already 
referred to reminding him of the evening, when they had 
loitered by the sea at Lynn and he had foretold Sumner's elec- 
tion to the Senate. He now saw the large future, which he then 
predicted, fulfilled in his actual life. 

Until this debate Sumner maintained pleasant relations with 
the Southern Senators, but from this time forward their in- 
timacy ceased and few of them recognized him socially. Their 
feeling towards him was bitter. Threats were made of expelling 
him from the Senate, and Math the votes they controlled there 
was some reason to fear such a result. It must be confessed 
that Sumner was not without feeling. He wrote to Howe 
during this session : '' This Congress is the worst, — or rather 
promises to be the worst since the Constitution was adopted ; 
it is the ' Devil's Own.' " 

The letters written him from Massachusetts, show that the 
debates of the session had been followed with interest and that 
the political tide was turning his way. One of his former 
opponents wrote him : " Differing with you as I do in political 
sentiments and having no other connection with public affairs 
than what pertains to every citizen, I desire, nevertheless, to 
express to you, what I believe to be the general feeling among 
all classes of reflecting minds here, an admiration for the 
dignified and gentlemanly bearing with which you have gone 
through the contest and rebuked this ruffian onslaught, and to 
say, moreover, that we should, I have no doubt, all unite, from 
all sides as one man, in sending you back to the Senate, should 
the maniac threats of expulsion by any possibility be carried 
into effect." 

Some of his friends referred to his conduct or expressions in 
a speech on one occasion and others to something on another 
occasion as seeming especially admirable to them. But they all 
agreed that his course during the stormy scenes of the session 
had admirably represented the sentiment of the State. One 
had cried, "Just the thing!" when he read his answer to 
Butler, inquiring whether he would aid in sending back a 
fugitive slave ; another thought that it was his reply to Mason 
that had made him think for once in his life that a Southern 
gentleman had been " squeezed through the little end of the 
horn." Wendell Phillips " liked and entirely approved the self- 



292 LI^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

respect with which he put his own opinion side by side with the 
Virginian's and left it.'' 

An old man, formerly a Member of Congress, wrote him : 
" Your contest in the Senate brought vividly to my recollection 
similar scenes which many years since I saw J. Q. Adams pass- 
ing through. And now how miserably insignificant and mean, 
to the eyes of the intelligent and honorable of the whole civilized 
world, do these rascally pigmies look ! and how ' the old man 
eloquent ' looms up ! Truth is mighty ; never fear, — sometime 
or other she will take care of you ; nay, she is doing it now 
with all who can see, and even with multitudes of your oppon- 
ents who see plainly enough but dare not speak. In one respect 
you have beaten ' the old man ' even. You have kept your 
temper better than he used always to do." 

The revolution of political feeling in the State was fast tend- 
ing to break up old party ties. A new party was being organ- 
ized, the Kepublican. The Abolitionists were going into it as a 
body and there was a drift towards it, from both the Whigs and 
the Democrats, many of whom were dissatisfied with the tem- 
porizing policy of the old parties on the slavery question. Early 
in the summer, the Republicans bid fair to carry the State. 
The leaders were eager for Sumner to join them. He was 
urgently pressed by the Provisional State Chairman, John A. 
Andrew, to be present and address the State Convention to be 
held at Worcester on September seventh. They felt that his 
presence after the exciting scenes in which he had taken part 
in Congress and the desire of the people to see and hear him 
would draw many to tlie Convention, if he would consent to 
speak. He consented and promised his sympathy and support 
to the new movement. 

Sumner received a flattering reception, when he appeared 
before the Convention. He was still a young man, only forty- 
three years of age, in the prime of mental vigor and manly 
strength, his face still unseamed by age or suffering. And yet 
he bore with him the laurels of a victor. For had he not gone 
forth from these scenes a few years before the representative 
of a few Abolitionists ; and was he not now returning to a State, 
driven by the stern march of events, to his position? When he 
came into the Convention, the audience received him standing 
and with cheers. He was conducted to the platform and the 
Convention suspended other business to hear him speak. His 
subject was the duty of Massachusetts in this new crisis and 
how it should be discharged, — what to do and liow to do it. He 
recited the recent encroachments of slavery in the arrest of 
Burns and the appearance of the slave-hunter in the streets of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 293 

Boston, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the de- 
struction of a time-honored landmark of Freedom pledged to 
perpetuity by slavery, for benefits long ago received, and ever 
since actually enjoyed. He urged the necessity for a union of 
the men of all parties, opposed to slavery, that they should 
throw aside old ties and join heartily under the one banner of 
the Republicans, to vi^ithstand the encroachments of the South. 

His two objects were; first, to vindicate the necessity for a 
new party; second, to prevent the enforcement of the Fugitive 
Slave Law in Massachusetts by convincing his fellow citizens 
that being against conscience and the Constitution, they should 
refase to lend any aid to its enforcement. Concluding he bade 
them be of good cheer and to hope. He knew the difficulties 
too well that lay between them and success, how little there was 
even in public life to tempt an honest man who wished, by some- 
thing he had done, to leave the world better than he found it. 
But still, to hope ! Already more than half the people of the 
Commonwealth wished to be rid of slavery. Let them not 
scatter their votes, but unite in one firm organization, without 
thought of compromise; and the triumph of Freedom woukl be 
realized, not only in IMassachusetts, but in the whole country. 

The speech was received with great enthusiasm. It was one 
of Sumner's telling efforts that met the wants of the hour, like 
his Faneuil Hall speech of November sixth, 1850, that was said 
to have made him Senator. The speech was made before the 
days of the telegraph and the Boston Traveller ran a special 
train from Worcester to Boston, a distance of forty miles, in 
one hour, — a great feat of railroading then, — to lay it before 
the people without delay. 

The Convention nominated Henry Wilson for Governor and 
Increase Sumner for Lieutenant-Governor; John A. Andrew 
was made chairman of the State Executive Committee. The 
party started with high hopes. But tlie efforts made by the old 
party journals and leaders, especially the Whig, to keep their 
voters in line, caused its defeat. This was accomplished by 
keeping alive and stirring up old party animosities against the 
Free-Soilers, of whom the new party was largely composed. 
Voters at first favorably impressed, were thus kept from joining 
it. The " American Party " better known as the " Know- 
Nothing ", whose cardinal principle was hostility to foreign- 
born citizens, especially Catholics, and which was an oath, 
bound, secret organization, was largely the outcome. Voters 
would not support the old parties, after the Nebraska legisla- 
tion; their prejudices kept them from voting with the Republi- 
cans, and they satisfied their desire for a change by seeking ref- 



294 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

uge in Know-Nothingism. The movement became general. 
Wilson joined it. The result was, the Republicans poled only 
six thousand votes while the Know-Nothings elected their State 
ticket and a legislature and thereby later made Wilson a United 
States Senator. The next year Know-Nothingism disappeared 
and the Republican party came to the front. Know-Nothingism 
was the path from both the old parties to the new. 

Sumner had no patience with Know-Nothingism and refused 
to encourage it by his voice or his vote. Its principles were 
distasteful to him. He was opposed to secrecy in political 
affairs ; and he thought this country should be an asylum for the 
oppressed of all nations, that a party organization could not 
be permanent that placed opposition to citizens because they 
were foreign born, among its cardinal principles. The peculiar 
turn political events had taken in Massachusetts led him to re- 
frain from taking any part in the campaign after his speech 
before the Republican convention. 

His only other public appearance during this vacation of 
Congress was on November 13, 1854, when he delivered an 
address to the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, in- 
troductory to its annual course of lectures. The association 
was composed of two thousand young men, engaged in mercan- 
tile pursuits, having a large library and organized for the 
moral and intellectual improvement of its members. He chose 
for his subject the " Position and Duties of the Merchant, illus- 
trated by the life of Granville Sharp " and he sought to show 
by the life of this good merchant, the author of English Eman- 
cipation, how much good can be accomplished and how much 
fame can be gathered by the well directed efforts and only the 
small means of a merchant's clerk. 

It is interesting to note how instinctively in hours of re- 
laxation, Sumner turned to books. They were his recreation 
for respite from toil and care. His official duties were often 
distasteful, the pressure of office seekers for places, the habitual 
ill-humor now of the Southern Members made his position dis- 
agreeable. Life until his entrance to the Senate had been so 
different. His separation from his books he felt as one of the 
hardships of his position and he sometimes regretted the change. 

There is no more fruitful and certain source of recreation 
than the reading of good books. They enter into the life of 
the busy and anxious man and steal care away before he is 
aware. Nowhere else can such relief be found. If he loses 
himself in the crowd on the street or seeks the solitude of the 
woods or the sea still the never ending cares of life come back 
to him constantly. In ceaseless waking thoughts, when every- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



295 



thinor is silent and he is left alone, they make the night cheer- 
less. But let the weary man settle down to the reading of a 
good book and how soon his thoughts are far away, absorbed in 
the scenes of its pages, bringing change and rest, the old sad 
visions crowded out by the new and the good. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SESSION OF '54—5 — TOUCEY BILL LECTURES BEFORE ANTI-SLAV- 
ERY ASSOCIATIONS — VISITS THE SOUTH AND WEST — PASS- 
MORE WILLIAMSON-SELECTION OF 1855 

After the long season of storm, in the last session of Con- 
gress there was a tacit agreement on all sides to let slavery rest 
for a while. During the session of 1854-5, this quiet was hardly- 
broken. Sumner occupied himself with other questions. He 
introduced a resolution against the enforced contributions from 
sailors for the support of Hospitals and he spoke on a bill to 
secure to seamen, in case of wreck, the wages already earned. 

Once late in the session the slavery question came up in the 
discussion of a bill introduced by Toucey of Connecticut, a 
Democrat, on February twenty-third, providing for the re- 
moval to the Federal Courts of all causes for damages brought 
in the State Courts against United States officers, for acts done 
in the discharge of any duty under the laws of Congress. 
There was no mention in the bill, of slavery, or the Fugitive 
Slave Law. It was introduced and its passage was insisted 
on as a matter of little interest. But Chase, who was a 
thorough lawyer at once caught its purpose to promote the 
apprehension of fugitive slaves; and he promptly opposed its 
passage. The anti-slavery men asked for time that it might 
be fully discussed, but the slavery men as usual pressed its 
passage and as usual it was rushed through. Slavery under- 
stood its purpose, was in favor of it and had the votes to pass 
it. Why should it favor discussion? February twenty-third 
was Friday ; and this was a day of the week devoted, according 
to the usage of the Senate, to the consideration of private 
bills. " Our day of justice/' Sumner called it. Upwards of 
seventy-five bills were on the calendar for consideration. But 
everything of a routine character was made to wait on slavery ; 
and this bill was allowed to consume the entire day. Wade in 
his pungent style, nettled its advocates by calling attention to 
the increased anti-slavery vote of the North. Wilson made his 
maiden speech in the Senate upon it. But Seward spoke best. 

Sumner secured the floor at midnight. He reminded the 
Senate that once before he had been compelled to speak at this 
late hour or be silent in the presence of the encroachment of 
296 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 297 

slavery. " It is liardly," he remarked, " an accidental conjunc- 
tion which constantly brings slavery and midnight together." 
Finding that the liberty of free colored persons was often en- 
dangered by the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, several 
of the Northern states had passed laws to protect them from 
this danger by insuring them the protection of trial by jury 
and the writ of habeas corpus. Some States also prohibited the 
use of their county jails and volunteer militia, in the enforce- 
ment of the law. The advocates of the bill inveighed against 
these laws ; but Sumner defended them and insisted that the 
attempts to enforce the law had only resulted in riots and blood- 
shed and disturbance of business and that already three states 
by formal resolution had demanded its repeal and two courts 
had declared it unconstitutional ; and yet this bill was intro- 
duced to bolster up this infamous law. 

Rush of Texas interrupted him to say that if the officers 
appointed to execute the law were to be left unprotected, the 
law should be repealed. Sumner answered that he proposed to 
make that very motion before he sat down, as he had already 
done twice before, and he would press it to a vote. Benjamin of 
Louisiana and Butler of South Carolina, the latter already 
showing the lateness of the hour in his too frequent cups, could 
not be silent. Sumner closed by moving the repeal of the 
Fugitive Slave Law and called for the yeas and nays. Butler 
thereupon arose and asked Sumner the very question he had 
asked him once before and which Sumner had answered then 
so pointedly, whether, if the law were repealed, Sumner would 
recommend the State of Massachusetts to pass a law to deliver 
up fugitives from slavery. To which Sumner promptly an- 
swered : No ! Butler, after some foolish talk about the right of 
a man with such opinions to a seat in the Senate and a rejoinder 
by Sumner, said he knew Sumner was not a tactician and that 
he would not take " advantage of the infirmity of a man, who 
did not know half his time what he was talking about," — a fling 
which coming from Butler whose condition was apparent, and 
referring to Sumner, whose abstinence was well known, pro- 
voked laughter from the Senate. 

The vote on Sumner's motion, to amend the pending bill so 
as to make it a bill for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
was, yeas 9, nays 30. But the Toucey bill passed. Only for 
this one day was the harmony of the session disturbed by 
slavery. The session closed on the third day of March, 1855. 

During the previous fall a course of lectures was organized 
in Boston and in New York for the discussion of slavery. This 
fact marks a distinct advance in anti-slavery warfare. That 



398 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

such a thing was possible in these two cities shows how much 
the cause had grown in popularity since Sumner delivered his 
lecture in 1847, seven years before, on " White Slavery in the 
Barbary States," so as to get a hearing for his subject by mask- 
ing it in that form. Now on a fair count the voters of his 
state against slavery were in the majority and this majority 
had two representatives in the United States Senate. Sumner 
was asked to deliver the opening lectures in the New York and 
Boston courses, but, owing to a severe cold, he was compelled 
to decline both, though he had accepted the Boston invitation. 
He afterwards delivered the concluding lecture in each course. 

Sumner's note to the Boston committee declining their first 
invitation shows us his care in keeping engagements. He 
wrote ; '*' It is my habit to keep my engagements. Not for a 
single day have I been absent from my seat in the Senate during 
the three sessions in which duty has called me there ; and never 
before in the course of numerous undertakings to address public 
bodies, at different times and in different places, has there been 
any failure through remissness or disability on my part." 

Sumner delivered the concluding lecture of the Boston course 
in March, after the adjournment of Congress. During his 
unoccupied time he had been making careful preparation for 
this appearance; the course being one in whose success he 
felt a deep interest. The lecture was delivered in Tremont 
Temple, which was crowded to overflowing. On the stage be- 
side him sat two children, whose release from their owner in 
Virginia, with that of their mother, he had negotiated for, dur- 
ing the previous winter, at the instance of the father, who had 
escaped from slavery and afterwards purchased his own free- 
dom and now, through Sumner, that of his family. The chil- 
dren were very light, almost white, in appearance, and their at- 
tractive faces, with the fate they had so narrowly escaped, were 
well calculated to arouse the fathers and mothers of a Northern 
audience against slavery. 

Sumner had not yet given away, in his speeches, the present 
effect he could have with an audience, for the permanent in- 
fluence he might afterwards have with those who would read 
what he said. Later in life he lost some of his effectiveness, by 
the attention he paid to how his speeches would read when 
printed. 

This lecture was delivered to a cultured audience and was 
received with such favor that he was called upon to deliver it 
again in the same hall a few days later. The call for it was such 
that he afterwards delivered it in many other places in Mas- 
sachusetts, — including Worcester, Lowell and Lynn, — and in 



Life op Charles sdmner 



299 



the principal cities of New York, — at Auburn, where he was the 
guest of Seward, who introduced liirn to the audience as " the 
statesman on whose shoulders the mantle of John Quincy Adams 
had fallen, — the young man eloquent," at Albany, Syracuse, 
Utica and Rochester. He was asked to deliver it in several of 
the Western States, but declined. On May ninth he delivered it 
in Metropolitan Theatre in New York city and the demand for 
it was so great that he delivered it the next night in Brooklyn, 
where Henry Ward Beecher presided ; and then in Niblo's Thea- 
tre, New York. It was printed in The Tribune of New York, 
The National Era in Washington and The Independent. 

This was Sumner's first appearance in New York city. The 
Tribune spoke thus of his "Three Days oration," as it was 
called : " That a lecture should be repeated in New York is 
a rare occurrence. That a lecture on anti-slavery should be 
repeated in New York, even before a few despised ' fanatics ' is 
an unparalleled occurrence. But that an anti-slavery lecture 
should be repeated night after night to successive multitudes, 
each more enthusiastic than the last, marks the epoch of a revo- 
lution in popular feeling; it is an era in the history of Liberty. 
Niblo's Theatre was crowded last evening long before the 
hour of commencement. Hundreds stood through the three 
hours' lecture." 

Sumner's subject was "The Anti-Slavery Enterprise; its 
Necessity, Practicability and Dignity." He sometimes opened 
his address with the striking presentation of some thought. The 
opening of this one, at Metropolitan Theatre, illustrates my 
meaning. 

"History," he said "abounds in vicissitudes. From weak- 
ness and humility, men ascend to power and place. From defeat 
and disparagement, enterprises are borne on to recognition and 
triumph. The martyr of to-day is gratefully enshrined on the 
morrow. The stone that the builders rejected is made the head 
of the corner. Thus it always has been and ever will be." 

He then referred to the few years before when a Female Anti- 
Slavery Society, sitting in a small room of an upper story in an 
obscure building in Boston, was insulted and then driven out 
of doors by a frantic crowd politely termed at the time " gentle- 
men of standing and property " and to William Lloyd Garrison, 
insulted and threatened and dragged through the streets until 
he was rescued and thrown into jail for protection, in contrast 
with this mighty assembly, counted by thousands, ruffled only 
by generous competition to participate in the occasion. " Here 
is a great change," he continued, "worthy of notice and mem- 
ory, for it attests the first stage of victory.*" 



300 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

The purpose of Sumner's lecture was to show the legal and 
political condition of the slaves in the South, the necessity for 
the anti-slavery enterprise and to answer the arguments made 
against it. Quoting from tlie laws of several slave States, 
he showed that human beings were held merely as chattels, 
in other words as personal property. The slave had no rec- 
ognition in law, as a soul capable of happiness here and of 
immortality hereafter. " The slave " he said, " may seem to 
have a wife, but he has not, for his wife belongs to his master. 
He may seem to have a child, but he has not, for his child is 
owned by his master. He may be filled with the desire of 
knowledge, opening to him the gate of joy on earth and in 
heaven; but the master may impiously close all these gates." 
A wrong so transcendent, he insisted should be righted. " Free- 
dom and Slavery can hold no divided empire ; nor can there 
be any true repose, until Freedom is everywhere established." 
To the favorite argument of the South that Noah's curse against 
Canaan made him the servant of servants unto his brethren, 
he answered that this malediction did not change Canaan to a 
chattel, much less his posterity ; that the African could neither 
be proven to be the descendant of Canaan, nor all slave masters 
to be the descendants of Shem or Japheth. While he admitted 
that the New Testament contained many injunctions for mas- 
ters and servants, conditions that must always exist, he insisted 
that nowhere, in the spirit of the teachings of Christ, could 
they find any authority for stavery, whereby a human soul was 
reduced to the condition of an ox. 

The first step necessary to the practicahiUty of emancipation, 
he argued, was to openly confront it. When soberly studied 
men would unite in applying the remedy to such an assemblage 
of unquestionable wrongs as slavery would be found to be. 
If the question be determined by absolute justice, compensation 
should be made to the slaves and not to the masters upon free- 
dom being granted. Still he was disposed to consider the 
question of compensation to the master, for freedom to the 
slave one of expediency, to be determined by the exigencies of 
the hour, though such he confessed was his anxiety for the dis- 
appearance of slavery that he would not hesitate to build a 
bridge of gold " if necessary for the retreating fiend." The as- 
sumption that slave labor was more profitable than free had 
been exploded by the census ; and the arguments that the slaves 
were not prepared for freedom was as foolish as the refusal of 
the mother to let her son enter the water, until he first knew 
how to swim. Its danger to master or slave could not be plead, 
in the face of numerous instances, where as in Jamaica or the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



301 



Barbadoes, the disproportion in numbers was greater than in 
this country, and yet emancipation there had been attended 
with no danger. If with all the wrongs of the slave, his wife 
ravished from his arms, his child swept to the auction block, the 
fruits of his labor appropriated by another, the master still slept 
secure, why should he be less so in the presence of his slave with 
all these wrongs righted. ''The highest safety is in doing 
right." 

The dignity of the enterprise, he argued, was vindicated by 
the loftiness of the cause of freedom throughout all ages and 
the numbers of human beings now sought to be benefitted. 
It could not be belittled by the hard names and personal dis- 
paragement heaped upon its advocates. It had ever been the 
lot of goodness and virtue in this world to be reviled and tra- 
duced. It was not the eminent, the rich and powerful, the 
favorites of fortune and of place who most promptly welcome 
the truth which brings change in the existing order of things, 
but those in poorer condition. 

In conclusion, he reminded them that there were according 
tothe census reports only 347,525 slaveholders and yet this 
oligarchy ruled the Republic, determined its policy and disposed 
of its offices. Their first duty was the overthrow of this oli- 
garchy. The Fugitive Slave Law by an aroused public senti- 
ment must also be made a dead letter. For his own part, long 
ago, he said he had made up his mind to have nothing to do with 
its execution. " I know not if our work will be soon accom- 
plished. * * * But better strive in this cause, even unsuc- 
cessfully, than never strive at all. The penalty of indifference 
is akin to the penalty of opposition,— as is well pictured by the 
great Italian poet, when, among the saddest on the banks of the 
Acheron, rending the air with outcries of torment, shrieks of 
anger and smiting of hands, he finds the troop of dreary souls 
who had been ciphers in the great conflicts of life." And, he 
insisted, that above all things there should be unity among the 
friends of Freedom, unity even as among the enemy there was 
unity. A lesson must be learned from them. As with them 
slavery was the mainspring of political life, from which eman- 
ated all power and all authority and among them all differences 
were swallowed up in the one idea, so must it be with the 
friends oi Freedom. They must unite in a compact political 
association, knit together by instincts of a common danger, de- 
termined to enfranchise the Government, powerful in numbers, 
wealth and intelligence, but more powerful still in an inspiring 
cause. 

Wherever it was delivered, this address did good for the anti- 



302 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

slavery cause. It met the arguments against emancipation and 
while there was manifest the speaker's indignation at the wrongs 
of slavery, he did not descend to abuse of the slave masters. It 
was the institution he attacked, not men. The recent uprising 
at the North against slavery, enabled him to find candid hearers, 
worthy of the preparation he had made to present the case fairly 
before them. When he had finished, he declared that he had 
found the people prepared as never before to welcome the truth 
and that the country was approaching a crisis on the slavery 
question when Freedom would triumph or the Union would be 
dissolved. 

For a number of years, Sumner had been wishing to visit the 
West and South. It will be remembered he had foregone this 
trip to serve as a member of the Convention to revise the Con- 
stitution of Massachusetts, in 1853. He wished to see slavery 
as it appeared at home. So the last of May he set out and, in 
the course of his trip, he "visited eleven free and three slave 
states. He visited his friend Horace Mann, then President of 
Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, and his colleague in 
the Senate, Salmon P. Chase, at Cincinnati. Then crossing 
into Kentucky, he visited Cassius M. Clay, at his home near 
Lexington. This was in the heart of the famous Blue Grass 
Eegion, one of the finest farming districts of the country. Its 
soil was fertile, having been freshly reclaimed from trackless 
forests, and its surface was rolling and easily tilled. To this, 
civilization had added excellent roads and all the improvements 
necessary to make desirable farms. It was dotted here and 
there with country mansions of aristocratic landlords, nestling 
among groves of native oak, surrounded with every conven- 
ience that would make home happy. It was a region as famed 
for fine stock as it was for generous welcome and abounding 
hospitality. The visit was one long to be remembered. 

Sumner had met Clay at a public reception, tendered to John 
P. Hale, in Boston, in 1853. He was subsequently invited by 
Clay to visit him in Kentucky. Clay's home, called White Hall, 
was surrounded by a fine grove containing almost every variety 
of native trees and some exotics. The immediate grounds about 
the mansion house, on the estate, contained thirty acres. Clay 
was engaged in the breeding of thorough-bred short-horn cattle 
and Southdown sheep. Sumner enjoyed the open-hearted hos- 
pitality and was pleased with the trees and flocks of sheep and 
herds of cattle. He continued his visit for several days. 

While there. Clay, who was a pronounced Abolitionist him- 
self, knowing Sumner's curiosity to see the condition of slaves, 
on a plantation^ took him to the estate of his brother Brutus 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 303 

J. Clay, near Paris, one of the finest farms in the country, 
where there were more than a hundred slaves owned. The 
slave families occupied separate houses built of hewed logs, 
mortared between, mostly of two rooms, one above the other. 
Each house had a yard in front and a garden behind and was 
surrounded by a post and rail fence. They were neatly white- 
washed, with such additions to some of them, as the taste of 
the occupants dictated; and the supply of winter's wood was 
carefully piled up for each. Upon the whole, they presented 
an air of neatness and comfort that Sumner had evidently not 
expected. Cassius M. Clay showed the negro quarters to 
Sumner, politely anticipating his curiosity; and they went 
alone so that he might feel free to ask any questions he desired. 
Sumner did not ask many, and it is remembered that he was 
slow to express any opinions or impressions of his own. When, 
however, a little colored boy ran ahead to open the gates for 
them and looked back smiling, Sumner's exclamation, as he 
tossed him a coin, was, " Poor boy ! " Seemingly the thought 
was, " Still with all these creature comforts, these poor people, 
at last, are only slaves ! " 

But he saw other things that proved to him, that even physi- 
cal comfort was by no means a uniform condition. At Lex- 
ington, on the steps of the Court House, he saw a slave put up 
and sold at auction and made to open his mouth and show his 
teeth, like a horse, for the satisfaction of bidders. At another 
place he was left to sit in his stage and wait while the driver 
" assisted to whip a nigger ". And still again, while he ate his 
meal he was compelled to witness a poor slave girl staggered 
under the blow of a clenched fist. Upon the whole, his opinion 
of slavery was confirmed by what he saw. A fact that im- 
pressed him, as much as any other, was that owing to prejudice 
and the limited disposition in the South to read, the Southern 
people knew less about the real condition of the slaves, than 
the people of the North. 

He visited, at Lexington, the home and grave of Henry Clay ; 
and at Nashville, those of Andrew Jackson, stopping by the way 
to see the Mammoth Cave. He went down the Cumberland and 
Ohio rivers to Cairo and up the Mississippi to St. Louis and 
St. Paul, stopping by the way to visit friends at several places. 
He was on the Great Lakes, as far north as Marquette. 

He spent a fortnight in the forests of the iron mountains 
on the shores of Lake Superior, cut off in those solitudes from 
all communication with the civilized world. As he left the 
harbor on a steamer bound for the head of the Lake, he re- 
marked that he had not seen the newspapers for two weeks and 



304 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

was ignorant of all that had transpired in the outer world, dur- 
ing this time. A fellow traveller handed him the dailies from 
the principal cities. As his eye ran hurriedly over them, he 
caught the intelligence that Passmore Williamson had been 
thrown into jail in Philadelphia for a contempt of court in a 
slave case. He turned from one paper to another to gather the 
details of the case. 

Williamson was an unpretending citizen. Secretary of a com- 
mittee of an Abolition Society. He had informed a slave 
mother and her two children that having been brought, by their 
master, into a State where slavery did not exist, they were by 
law, free. They had accordingly escaped from their master and 
he was unable to recover them or even learn their whereabouts. 
He had asked of the United States District Court a writ of 
habeas corpus against Williamson, commanding him to produce 
the bodies of the mother and children before the Court. The 
writ was allowed. But Williamson having been brought into 
Court answered that he did not have them in his custody, did 
not know their whereabouts and could not therefore comply 
with the order of the Court. He was, however, found guilty of 
contempt and sent to jail. 

As Sumner gathered the details of this outrageous judgment, 
he hesitated a little and then inquired the name of the island 
the steamer was just passing. While seated on the deck of the 
" North Star ", that beautiful Sabbath morning, where the 
rocky outlines of Granite Island and the mountains of the 
mainland were mirrored in the clear waters of Lake Superior 
and where everything the eye rested on was emblematic of peace 
and purity and freedom, he wrote a thrilling letter to William- 
son in Moyamensing Prison. 

" From beginning to end, from side to side," he wrote, " and 
in every aspect, this transaction can be regarded only as a clear, 
indubitable, and utterly unmitigated outrage. The new-fangled 
doctrine, that a master can voluntarily import his alleged 
slave — of course with all the revolting incidents of slavery — into 
the Free States is not more odious than preposterous. It is 
scouted, by reason, and disowned by universal jurisprudence. 
You were right in disregarding it. In stepping forward to 
remind persons claimed as slaves on this pretext that all such 
claim is baseless, you did a good work. It was this knowledge 
which filled them with confidence to regain their God-given 
liberty. And for this it appears that you have been brought 
before a man, ' dressed in a little brief authority ' who has 
cast you into prison." 

"it is a privilege to suffer for truth; and I envy not the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 305 

meanness of that soul which would hesitate to prefer your 
place within the stone walls of a prison to tlie cushioned bench 
of the magistrate by whose irrational and tyrannical edict you 
have been condemned." 

Sumner did not hesitate to hold up the wrongs of slavery. 
He believed that this was one of the ways to right them. 

He returned home through the Lakes, stopping at Saratoga 
and the White Mountains and reached Boston during the first 
week of September. He had been absent more than three 
months. Before going he had hesitated between the choice of 
this tour through his own country and a trip to Europe. But 
feeling that the information he would acquire by a trip South 
and West would be more useful to him, he had chosen it. He 
afterwards felt that this choice was wisely made. 

The campaign was attracting attention in Massachusetts, 
when he returned. The Know-Nothings were active again and 
voters, dissatisfied with the Whig and Democratic parties, were 
still deserting them. Sumner clung to the hope of uniting all 
anti-slavery men in the new Eepublican party and to make its 
cardinal principle, opposition to slavery. He continued to 
have no faith in the principles of Know-Nothingism. He did 
not believe that a party with such principles as an oath-bound 
secrecy and hostility to foreign born citizens or to the mem- 
bership of any particular religious denomination could be long 
continued in power. Such principles would have excluded 
William of Orange from participation in the political fortunes 
of England, Napoleon from those of France and Hamilton 
from those of America. And yet these were the primary prin- 
ciples of Know-Nothingism. Its opposition to slavery, he be- 
lieved was merely to catch votes. 

During the campaign he spoke for the Eepublicans, in the 
principal towns and cities of the State, He urged men of all 
parties to unite, in this one, in enduring opposition to slavery. 
In his speeches he boldly condemned Know-Nothingism. As 
his term in the Senate was drawing to a close and this party 
was in control of the State government and bade fair to con- 
tinue its ascendency for the next year, when the Senator would 
be chosen, while his course was a courageous one, his friends, 
many of them at least, feared it was not discreet. But he 
believed that a public man should not be a mere follower of 
others in politics, but a leader, and he went forward. His cour- 
age might have cost him his seat. There was some talk of an- 
ticipating the election of his successor by having the present 
Legislature, make the choice, but other counsels prevailed. His 
danger, however, continued ; for the Know-Nothings were again 
successful in electing a Governor and a Legislature. 



CHAPTER XXII 

STORMY SESSION OF CONGRESS — BANKS, REPUBLICAN, MADE 
SPEAKER — KANSAS TROUBLES — APPLIES FOR ADMISSION — 
SUMNER's SPEECH — THE REPLIES TO IT — SUMNER's RE- 
JOINDER 

The session of Congress which commenced on the third day 
of December, 1855, was a memorable one. The election had 
shown a feeling of unrest prevalent in the country and a dis- 
satisfaction with the courses of the two old political parties. 
The South had returned a delegation to Congress thoroughly 
loyal to slavery, but many districts in the North had sent anti- 
slavery men. When Congress opened, the change became ap- 
parent. N. P. Banks of Massachusetts, a pronounced anti- 
slavery man and a Republican, was the candidate for Speaker 
from the North and William Aiken of South Carolina was the 
candidate of the South and each represented the rival feelings 
of the different sections upon the slavery question. Ballot after 
ballot became necessary before a choice was made and it was not 
till the second day of February, 1856, on the one hundred and 
thirty-third ballot, that Banks was elected. It was significant 
that the candidates came from the States they did, Massachus- 
etts and South Carolina. It was significant that every vote 
Banks received was from the North and that his opponent had 
the solid vote of the South except only one Cullen's of Dela- 
ware. Davis of Maryland declined to vote for either candidate. 
For the first time it was the South compactly arrayed against 
the North, section against section. It was an ominous attitude. 

For the first time in the history of the country there was a 
national official elected by one section. But Banks' election 
had a deeper meaning than this. For the first time in the 
country's history, the anti-slavery men had scored a national 
triumph. All their victories, till now, had been local, a mem- 
ber of Congress, a Governor, occasionally a U. S. Senator. But 
now they had become so strong that their party assumed na- 
tional proportions. One of the most important offices of the 
nation was filled by a man of that conviction and because he 
was so. Sumner wrote Charles Francis Adams : " I was present 
when he was conducted to his chair. It was a proud historic 
306 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 307 

moment. For the first time during years there seemed to be a 
North. I fancied I saw the star glittering over his head." 

The causes for this change in public opinion were to be 
found in the course of the Democratic party controlled by the 
South. The Missouri Compromise, the established landmark 
of Freedom, that had been fixed with much labor and had 
grown sacred with age, had been repealed to open the way for 
the extension of slavery. This had been followed by the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill establishing these Territories, and opening 
them to settlement, by people of the South with their slaves, 
and emigrants from the North, and permitting the settlers to 
determine for themselves, whether they should be slave or 
free. The effect of this legislation was to make the Territories 
slave. They were to continue so, unless the anti-slavery men, 
by a vote at some subsequent time could wrest them away from 
slavery. These successive encroachments had angered the anti- 
slavery people of the North; and they determined, notwith- 
standing this legislation to make Kansas a free state. Kansas 
was the debatable ground, for if it was won for Freedom, Ne- 
braska would certainly follow. The South was just as de- 
termined to make Kansas a slave state. This constant agitation 
had embittered the two sections. 

The New England Emigrant Aid Co. had been incorporated 
in Massachusetts. Its object and its methods were perfectly 
legitimate. It proposed to promote emigration, from the New 
England states, by furnishing information about Kansas to 
persons likely to emigrate, to cheapen to them the cost of trans- 
portation thither and, by the building of saw and flour mills, 
hotels, and school-houses to enable them to become finally fixed, 
in permanent homes. Its influence and its means were limited. 
It is estimated that not more than fifteen hundred persons 
were induced by it to become residents of the Territory. The 
South, watching with jealousy every movement of the North 
towards colonization and remembering how California had 
recently slipped from its grasp, professed not to be able to see 
any legitimate purpose in the Emigrant Aid Co. It knew that 
the settlers thus furnished would almost certainly be against 
slavery. The Company, therefore, became the object of bitter 
denunciations. 

Kansas was of vital importance to slavery. It was within 
the same parallels as Missouri and could raise the same crops. 
Missouri was a slave State. Kansas then included a large part 
of what is now Colorado. It was the gateway of the North to 
New Mexico and Utah. New Mexico then included Arizona ; 
and Utah included Nevada. To control Kansas, therefore, 



308 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

meant to control what is now six States and Territories. Kan- 
sas would restore the equality, to the South, in the Senate, 
which had been lost by the admission of California ; it would 
also put the South in the way to acquire ten votes more. No 
set of statesmen ever saw a proposition more clearly or knew 
better how they could wield the advantage that would be gained, 
if they could only reach it, than those of the South. And this, 
witli a will, they set themselves to accomplish. 

To secure Kansas to slavery, the South resorted to the boldest 
frauds. It conceived the plan of having persons go there and 
stake off claims to desirable land, remain perhaps a few days in 
tents, call themselves residents of the Territory so as to be able 
to return and vote, whenever occasion and the interests of 
slavery should require, and then return to their homes in slave 
states. The nearness of the Territory to Missouri, a slave state, 
rendered this plan of counting votes for slavery peculiarly prac- 
ticable. One Atchison, who had been a U. S. Senator from 
Missouri and was for several sessions President pro tern of the 
Senate, and another, Stringfellow, were especially prominent, 
frequently leading bands, under arms, from Missouri to Kansas 
to accomplish such purposes; and, under their leadership were 
often committed gross outrages, against the rights of citizenship 
and property, sometimes amounting to the shedding of inno- 
cent blood. 

Four sons of John Brown had early settled in the Territory ; 
and the father soon after left his little farm among the Adiron- 
dacks and followed them. The father and sons were sworn en- 
emies of slavery. The old man had early in life declared his 
unalterable opposition to it. Whether his primary object in 
emigrating to the Territory was to make it a permanent home 
or simply to assist in saving it to Freedom, can never, perhaps, 
be certainly known. But such spirits could not long remain 
undiscovered, amid the stirring scenes into which they were 
cast. Two of the sons, while quietly attending to their work in 
the fields were seized by a band of Missourians, under the com- 
mand of a certain Pate, who delivered then into the hands of 
some Federal troops. On horseback these troops drove them on 
foot, manacled, without any legal charge against them, over the 
burning prairie ; and before the sun had set, the younger John 
Brown was a raving maniac. And yet, against the perpetrators 
personally of the deed the father seemed to entertain no thought 
of revenge. " What God does is well done " ; " Vengeance is 
mine ; I will repay saith the Lord " ; such texts seemed to con- 
sole him as against the men who did these things. But he was 
dreadfully in earnest, in his warfare against the institution 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 309 

that he held accountable for these wrongs. He was overcome 
with emotion and shed tears when he undertook to recount 
them before the Legislature of Massachusetts. 

A mere narration of some other events in Kansas will show 
the lengths Slavery was willing to go. A. M. Reeder of Pennsyl- 
vania, a Democrat, had been appointed by President Pierce, 
Governor of the Territory. At the time of his selection, there 
was no question about his loyalty to Southern interests. In 
November, 1854, Missourians to the number of seventeen hun- 
dred under the lead of Atchison came armed into the Territory 
and participated in the election of Whitfield to Congress. A 
little later, in March, 1855, they came from Missouri armed 
to the number of five thousand, and, marching to the polls, 
where the election of members of the Legislature was being held 
they demanded with weapons in their hands that they be al- 
lowed to vote and they were permitted to do so. Governor 
Reeder issued certificates to a majority of the members thus 
chosen, but, becoming convinced of the magnitude of the out- 
rage, he refused, finally, to recognize the Legislature or the 
validity of its acts. He was thereupon removed by President 
Pierce, who was in full sympathy with the South, and Wilson 
Shannon of Ohio was appointed, in his place. This Legislature 
was worthy of its origin. In two months it enacted eight hun- 
dred and twenty-three pages of statutes. How this could be 
done so quickly was incredible, till it was discovered that they 
had re-enacted the statutes of Missouri almost wholesale, with- 
out in some places even changing the word " State " to " Ter- 
ritory ", where it occurred. But its enactments upon the sub- 
ject of slavery, it made worse. It was made a criminal offence 
to declare openly or in writing that slavery did not legally exist 
in the Territory. 

The Free-Soilers refused to recognize the validity of these 
elections. They knew that there were only about three thou- 
sand legal voters in the Territory and that of the six thousand 
votes counted for the Legislature, only eight hundred were cast 
by actual settlers. They organized an independent movement 
and chose Governor Reeder their Representative in Congress 
and sent him to Washington, to contest the election of Whit- 
field. At the same time carefully abstaining from recognizing 
the validity of the enactments of the Legislature and yet, desir- 
ing to avoid any appearance of resistance to Federal authority, 
they deemed it best to apply for admission as a State, rather 
than create a rival Legislature. They accordingly chose dele- 
gates to a Constitutional Convention to meet at Topeka. The 
Missourians assuming that, by these acts, the Federal authority 



310 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

had been defied, under pretext of assisting a pro-slavery Sheriff, 
in the execution of a warrant, marched into the Territory, 
twelve hundred strong, and with arms, threatened the destruc- 
tion of the town of Lawrence. This town had been founded 
mainly by settlers from New England, under the auspices of 
the Emigrant Aid Co., and was the stronghold of the Free- 
Soilers. The insurgents encamped opposite the town; but find- 
ing it fortified and defended, its inhabitants armed with 
Sharpe's rifles, they retired. They were still in the Territory 
committing depredations, when Congress assembled in Decem- 
ber. But notwithstanding these threats, the Constitutional 
Convention met at Topeka, drafted a constitution prohibiting 
slavery and the question of its adoption was submitted to the 
people, in December, and it was adopted. The next month they 
chose State officers and a Legislature and the Legislature met 
and elected two TJ. S. Senators and applied for admission as a 
State. But farther than this they did not exercise the functions 
of their offices. They still carefully abstained from any act 
that could be construed as a resistance of Federal authority, 
knowing the President's hostility. 

President Pierce, acting as it was understood, under the 
inspiration of his Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, afterwards 
President of the Confederacy, had already sent Federal troops 
into the Territory, under the pretence of preserving the peace 
and sustaining the National authorities ; but already committed 
to the projects of tlie South and being now in the full tide of a 
campaign for renomination, he was in reality thus using his 
power, to aid the South, in its efforts for supremacy, in the 
Territory. The Free-Soilers were, in his eyes, traitors and 
their acts revolutionary; the Legislature they ignored was to 
him a lawfully elected and organized body and he threatejied 
to enforce obedience to its enactments at the point of the 
bayonet. On the twenty-fourth day of January, 1856, he sent 
a special message to Congress, calling attention to the condi- 
tion of affairs in Kansas. Here appeared again his usual 
method of apologizing for the conduct of the insurgents, ap- 
proving all the acts of the slaveholders and condemning the 
efforts of the Free-Soilers. The message brought the whole 
matter lawfully to the attention of Congress. The Administra- 
tion proceeded to place the Federal troops in Kansas at the 
service of Governor Shannon, who was in sympathy with the 
South. The eyes of the Nation were upon Kansas, where 
the opening scenes of the Civil War were being enacted. 

A week after the President's message was received, on Feb- 
ruary second, the House being organized by the election of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



311 



Banks, Speaker, the question of Kansas came up for considera- 
tion, Whitfield and lieeder were present, rival claimants for 
a seat, each insisting that he was the lawfully elected Repre- 
sentative, each fresh from the field of strife and aggressive in 
the cause he represented. There was little disposition on the 
part of the House to postpone a question of such importance. 
After some discussion it became apparent that the means at 
hand furnished little aid in the solution of the question and 
against the protest of the Southern members a committee was 
appointed to go to Kansas and make a personal investigation 
of the condition of affairs in the Territory. Here was a second 
triumph of the Pree-Soilers and a second defeat of the Admin- 
istration. The committee consisted of Howard of Michigan, 
Sherman of Ohio and Oliver of Missouri. Sherman was then 
a young man, thirty-three years of age, serving his second term 
in Congress, destined to an unbroken public career extending 
over a period of forty-two years. Howard and Sherman were 
Republicans and Oliver was a Democrat. 

The committee proceeded promptly to the Territory and 
entered upon a searching investigation, examining large num- 
bers of witnesses and reducing their testimony to writing. It 
was determined, to get, what conservative people all over the 
North desired, an accurate knowledge of the real cause of the 
troubles in Kansas. Eight weeks were consumed in the in- 
vestigation, the committee holding its sittings in the towns of 
Lawrence, Lecompton, Topeka and Leavenworth and on the 
first day of July, 185G it presented its report to the House, in 
which Howard and Sherman joined, Oliver offering a dissent. 
They found that the history of the organization of the Territory 
had been one continual scene of violence and disorder, — such 
that no adequate picture of it could be given without appearing 
extravagant, that aid societies had been organized, both North 
and South, to promote emigTation in the interest of the rival 
parties, which were not in their plan and purpose illegal, but 
that unlawful armed bands of marauders had repeatedly come 
into the Territory from Missouri, intimidating the settlers, 
committing depredations, terrorizing election officers, in great 
numbers casting illegal votes at many elections and that the 
Legislature assuming to act in that capacity and pass laws for 
the government of the people was, by reason of frauds in the 
choice of its members, an illegal body! 

In the meantime events had been hastening to a crisis in the 
Senate. A week after the proclamation of the President to the 
people of Kansas, in consequence of which the United States 
troops were placed at the service of Governor Shannon, in an- 



312 L,IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

swer to a call by the Senate, the President sent with a special 
message, the papers in his possession, giving information of the 
events in the Territory. Thereupon a short and acrimonious 
debate ensued between Wilson and Hale for the Free-Soilers 
and Butler, Jones, Toombs and Toucey for the Democrats. The 
latter showed ill-temper and applied some coarse epithets to the 
Free-Soilers and they were answered by Wilson and Hale in the 
same spirit. It was noticed that there was an increased tension 
between the two parties. Intercourse was less frequent and 
what there was, less cordial than ever before. The talk of 
secession and disunion was more common and more bold. It 
was apparent that a storm was gathering. But there was still 
a disposition to await the report of the Committee on Territor- 
ies to which the message and documents had been referred. 

This committee reported on the twelfth day of March. Doug- 
las, the chairman, on the loud call of Butler, instead of send- 
ing the report to the Clerk's desk as was customary, to be read 
by the Clerk, advanced to the desk and read it facing the 
Senate. It was concurred in by four members of the com- 
mittee. When he finished. Senator Collamer advanced and 
read a dissenting report signed by himself alone. His position 
showed something of heroism. 

Ten years later in a eulogy upon Collamer, Sumner, describ- 
ing this scene, said : " The reports of the committees were us- 
ually handed in and ordered to be printed ; but now at the im- 
passioned call of the Senator from South Carolina, the report 
of the Committee, whitewashing incredible outrages, was read 
by the Chairman at the desk of the Secretary of the Senate. 
The Chairman left his seat for this purpose, and stood face to 
face with the Senate. For two hours the apology for that usur- 
pation which had fastened a Black Code upon an inoffensive 
people, sounded in this chamber, while the partisans of slavery 
gloated over the seeming triumph. There was a hush of silence, 
and there was sadness also with some, who saw clearly the un- 
pardonable turpitude of the sacrifice. Mr. Collamer followed 
with a minority report signed by himself alone, which he read 
at the desk of the Secretary, standing face to face with the 
Senate. Jesse D. Bright was at the time our President, but he 
had installed in the chair on that momentous occasion none 
other than that most determined artificer of treason and drill 
sergeant of Rebellion, John Slidell, who sat behind like Mephis- 
topheles looking over the shoulder of Truth, while the patriot 
Senator, standing before, gravely unfolded the enormities that 
had been perpetrated. Few then present now remain, but none 
then present can fail to recall the scene. The report which Mr. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 313 

Collamer read belongs to the history of the country. But the 
scene comes clearly within the domain of Art. In the long life 
of our departed friend it was his brightest and most glorious 
moment, — beyond anything of honor or power, whether in the 
cabinet or on the bench. For what is office, compared to the 
priceless opportunity nobly employed, of standing as a buttress 
for human rights." 

The majority report covered up the crimes of the ruffian 
marauders from Missouri and attributed all the troubles in 
Kansas to the Free-Soil settlers and especially to the work of the 
New England Emigrant Aid Co. As soon as tlie reports were 
read Sumner took the floor and briefly defended the company 
saying that though it sent emigrants to Kansas it had a right to 
do so and though it hated slavery, it had a right to do so, that 
it had offended no law and been guilty of no misconduct and 
that every attempt to show otherwise would fail. 

Stejohen A. Douglas the author of the majority report was 
the most difficult and disagreeable opponent of the anti-slavery 
men. He was born in Vermont. A poor boy, of meager edu- 
cation, at the age of twenty he had gone to Illinois, then the 
extreme western frontier. Almost penniless, when he landed, 
with characteristic energy, the same day he clerked a sale to 
acquire the means of present support. With such energy did 
he enter upon his life, in this new field, that at the age of 
twenty-two, he was Attorney-General of Illinois, Secretary of 
State at twenty-seven, Supreme Judge at twenty-eight, a Mem- 
ber of Congress at thirty and at thirty-nine in the TJ. S. Senate 
and a candidate for the Presidency. And he continued to be a 
candidate for the Presidency until his death in 1861, at the age 
of forty-eight. His promotion was characteristic of the man. 
Rather below medium height, but handsomely and compactly 
built, so as to justify the pet name, " Little Giant ", with which 
his admirers dubbed him, he had a constitution that could stand 
an immense amount of hard work and mental anxiety. He 
had great power as a debater ; no one could see a point quicker, 
make more of it for himself or turn it against his adversary 
more adroitly and, if the case was against him, no one could 
muddle it more effectually so as to obscure its real merit. He 
was by nature an orator, ready of utterance, quick at repartee ; 
and in that style of speaking, which resembles a physical 
combat, he had no equal. But at this time of his life he was in- 
tolerant of opposition, coarse and sometimes insulting towards 
his political adversaries and unscrupulous in his methods. Of 
all the " bullies " that defended slavery in Congress, at thi§ 
time, none deserved the title more than Douglas. 



314 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Anti-slavery people of the North found fault with their Con- 
gressmen because they did not meet these pro-slavery statesmen 
more in their own manner. Nothing pleased them better than 
the spirit of Joshua E. Giddings^ who, in answer to one of their 
blustering challenges to a duel, accepted and chose rifles as 
the weapons, at thirty paces. Many thought Northern States- 
men lacking in spirit; and there was a growing disposition 
among anti-slavery men in Congress to show more fight. As 
pro-slavery Members realized this, they grew more insolent. In 
answer to Sumner's comments on the report of the committee, 
Douglas was promptly on his feet to threaten the penalties of 
treason against him and the Free-Soilers of Kansas. In the 
debate which followed he pounced upon his Eepublican col- 
league who had only recently come to the Senate, applied in- 
discriminate epithets to him and impeached the motives of 
himself and the other anti-slavery Senators. Trumbull an- 
swered him savagely and closed by declaring that he would 
never permit him there or elsewhere to make an assault upon 
him without meeting it with the best power God had given him. 
When Douglas turned again to Sumner to charge him with 
having gone to his seat or spoken to him privately, during the 
consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill to secure a post- 
ponement of the debate that he might gain time to circulate 
a libel against him — the protest of the Free-Soilers written by 
Chase and distributed broadcast — Sumner denied that he had 
ever gone to his seat for any such purpose and insisted that he 
had only exercised his right and been governed by a sense of 
duty when he arose in his place and asked for delay, because he 
desired it for a proper discussion of that question. To his as- 
persion that in this he was guilty of conduct unworthy a 
gentleman, Sumner replied that he would leave it to the Sen- 
ate to determine whether Douglas was a proper judge on such 
a subject. 

A week later Trumbull was attacked by Douglas again. In 
reiterating his insulting references to the Eepublicans, he in- 
sisted that they were in favor of an amalgamation of the races 
to Avhich Wilson and Collamer replied. Clay of Alabama and 
Butler of South Carolina spoke in the same vein. In all their 
speeches Massachusetts and the New England Aid Company 
were special objects of their spleen and the old taunt was thrown 
at the Eepublican members of fawning upon Southern states- 
men to procure social prestige and standing, in the society of 
the Capitol. 

Five days after the reading of the report by Douglas, he in- 
troduced a bill authorizing the people of Kansas to form a Con- 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 315 

stitution preparatory to their admission as a State, when they 
should be found to have the requisite population. Seward at 
once ofl'ered a substitute providing for the immediate admission 
of Kansas as a State under .the Constitution already formed 
by the Topeka Convention, This Constitution prohibited 
slavery. But the bill introduced by Douglas provided for a 
new Convention, he, of course, favoring a pro-slavery Constitu- 
tion or at least an opportunity for such a one to be adopted. 
Several Senators had already spoken on these bills — Douglas, 
Butler, Clay, Jones, Hale and Collamer. Sumner sought to 
speak as early as May second, but did not get the floor until 
May nineteenth. 

Several of the speeches were coarsely personal. Jones of Ten- 
nessee called Hale, "the Devil's Own." Clay said Hale was 
ambitious of a kicking." Douglas called Trumbull his col- 
league a "traitor"; the Republicans with him were uniformly 
" black ", and the Free-Soilers of Kansas " rebels " and " revo- 
lutionists ". Benjamin called them " conspirators ". The Free- 
Soilers answered in the same vein. To the assertion of Douglas 
that they were in favor of amalgamation, Wilson retorted that 
" such emanations were usually coming from men with the 
odor of amalgamation upon them " and called him and his 
Democratic colleagues who urged the passage of his bill 
" lieutenants of Atchison, the chieftain of the Border Euffian 
Democracy ". 

For several years Butler had been insulting in his references 
to Sumner. In 1854, he had called Sumner a " plunging 
agitator ", and a " rhetorical advocate ", and referred to certain 
remarks he had made in a speech in the Senate as wanting in 
" common prudence or common delicacy " and to certain dis- 
tinctions of Sumner as " sickly ", and other remarks as " un- 
true " and that he was actuated by "pseudo philanthropy", a 
" philanthropy that proposes much and does nothing with a 
long advertisement and a short performance ", as " actuated 
by criminal ambition and heartless hypocrisy " ; called his 
State, Massachusetts, an " anti-nigger State " and declared that 
" at the time of the passage of the law in Massachusetts abolish- 
ing slavery, pretty nearly all the grown negroes disappeared 
somewhere ; and as the historian expresses it, the little negroes, 
left there, without father or mother, and with hardly a God, 
were sent about as puppies, to be taken by those who would 
feed them ", when as a matter of fact, slavery had not been abol- 
ished by the passage of a law in Massachusetts, but by a decision 
of the Supreme Court, whose announcement could not have been 
anticipated so as to permit the transportation of the grown 



316 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

slaves. Six months later Butler accused Sumner of " flagrantly 
misrepresenting history "^ * * * " by vapid rhetoric ". As late 
as February 23, 1855, he referred to Sumner in debates as a man 
who " did not know half his time exactly what he was about." 
The episode between himself and Sumner, when he asked Sum- 
ner, if he would return a fugitive slave ; to which Sumner re- 
torted, " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing ", and 
the subsequent perversions of Sumner's answer to mean that he, 
a Senator, sworn to do so, would not obey the Constitution and 
laws of the United States, have already been mentioned and 
need not be repeated. This perversion had been tauntingly 
thrown at Sumner with pettifogging frequency. 

It will thus be seen that when Sumner on the nineteenth day 
of May, 1856, arose to speak on the bill, introduced by Douglas, 
and on the substitute moved by Seward, for the admission of 
Kansas, as a State, he was under many provocations from his 
opponents. Much also could be allowed for the excitement 
prevailing in the country and especially in Congress over the 
troubles in Kansas. Probably never in the history of the 
country did political excitement run higher; for Southern 
statesmen had not yet reconciled themselves to schemes of se- 
cession, and the North had not yet settled to the grim deter- 
mination to prevent disunion. Both were in the angry mood 
for having everything their own way. Sumner was firm in his 
determination that no more laurels should be gathered for 
slavery, if he could prevent it. His speech, by reason of the 
importance of the crisis, in which it represented the highest 
wave of excitement, and the interest aroused in it by the assault 
which followed, is the most memorable of all Sumner's produc- 
tions. What he said of slavery as an institution was of course 
much the same as what he had already said and need not on 
this account be repeated but what he said of the attempt now 
made to admit Kansas as a slave State and especially his 
references to Butler and Douglas are important in the light of 
what followed. 

After referring to the wickedness which he hoped to expose, 
being aggravated by the motive which prompted it, the desire 
for a new slave State, he said : 

" Before entering upon the argument, I must say something 
of a general character, particularly in response to what has 
fallen from Senators who have raised themselves to eminence 
on this floor in championship of human wrong; I mean the 
Senator from South Carolina (Butler) and the Senator from 
Illinois (Douglas) who though unlike as Don Quixote and 
Sancho Panza, yet like this couple sally forth in the same ad- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



3ir 



venture. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat ; 
but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such ebulli- 
tion of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing 
him should not be lost; and it is for the cause I speak. The 
Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, 
and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of 
honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom 
he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always 
lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is 
chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot Slavery. For her his 
tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in 
character, or any proposition be made to shut her out from the 
extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner 
or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. 
The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench Dulcinea del 
Toboso is all surpassed. The asserted rights of slavery which 
shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of 
equality. If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of 
the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames Equality, under 
the Constitution ;— in other words, the full power in the 
National Territories to compel fellow men to unpaid toil, to 
separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the 
auction block,— then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the 
State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! 
Exalted Senator! A second Moses come for a second 
exodus ! * * * 

" As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, 
so the Senator from Illinois (Douglas) is the squire of slavery, 
its very Sancho Panza ready to do its humiliating offices. This 
Senator in his labored address vindicating his labored report,— 
piling one mass of elaborate error upon another mass, — con- 
strained himself as you will remember to unfamiliar decencies 
of speech. Of that address I have nothing to say at this mo- 
ment, though before I sit down I shall show something of its 
fallacies." * * * 

Sumner then spoke; first, of the crime against Kansas; 
second, of the apologies for it ; third, of the remedy for it. 

Referring to the Nebraska Bill which had opened the Terri- 
tory to Slavery and enrolled upon the statute book the Douglas 
doctrine of "popular sovereignty," giving opportunity for "the 
trouble that now existed, he said that if that bill had been 
allowed to go over to another congress, so that the people could 
have been heard against it, they would have defeated it. He 
declared it was a swindle— a swindle on the part of the South 
that had already enjoyed its share of the Missouri Compromise • 



318 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

a swindle of those whose share was yet untouched ; as a bill of 
peace it was a swindle to the whole country ; it was a swindle of 
a Territory cheated of protection against slavery. Sumner then 
went over in detail a history of the outrages committed in 
Kansas, the invasion from Missouri to elect a Congressman in 
November, 1854 and again to elect a Legislature in March, 
1855, and again to elect a Congressman in October, 1855, the 
invasion and threatened assault upon the town of Lawrence, 
the proclamation of Governor Shannon calling for troops, an- 
swered only by more companies of marauders from the border 
counties of Missouri and still another invasion from Missouri in 
December, 1855, on the occasion of voting, on a Constitution 
for Kansas, the Territory in a condition of anarchy, the citizens 
under arms, outrages committed sometimes amounting to 
murders and everything said or done in this vast circle of crime 
radiating from o}ie idea that Kansas must be made a slave 
State and this to be accomplished, first, by outrages of all kinds, 
driving anti-slavery people out of the Territory, second, by 
deterring others from coming, and third, by obtaining com- 
plete control of the Territorial government. He said that while 
the first two purposes had failed, the third had so far succeeded. 
He commented at length on the disgraceful character of the 
laws that had been enacted to fasten slavery upon the Territory. 
He passed rapidly over the apologies which were made for 
these crimes, the idea that the recognition by Governor Reeder 
of a Legislature elected by such palpable frauds could clothe it 
with the mantle of legality, that the President had no power to 
arrest such proceedings, that in justification of it there existed 
an oath-bound secret society pledged to make Kansas a Free 
State wdien there was only an honorable movement with this 
end in view, not in conflict with the laws of the country. Much 
effort had been made by the apologists for these outrages, to 
justify them by attacking the Emigrant Aid Company of New 
England. This Sumner declared was infamous. The continued 
assaults upon this society had led its members to desire to have 
the false impression thus given of its aims and purposes re- 
moved, by some person of influence, who knew better what it 
was, than its enemies. Several gentlemen prominent in its 
organization and conduct had been in correspondence with 
Sumner for some months. They expected of him a refutation 
of the calumnies that had been uttered against them. He had 
urged upon them to lay aside tlie tone of apolog}% which they 
were so wont to fall into, in speaking of the society and plant 
themselves boldly on the legality of the enterprise. One of the 
managers, J. M. S. Williams, came on to Washington to talk 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 319 

over the subject with Sumner, before he spoke, and was present 
at the delivery of the speech, and Sumner afterwards gave the 
manuscript of it to him, 

Sumner said that it had been grossly assailed, that it was an 
association of sincere benevolence, faithful to law, whose only 
fortifications were hotels, school-houses and churches, whose 
only weapons were saw-mills, tools and books, and whose mis- 
sion was peace and good will, and if he would consult his own 
feelings he would dismiss the attack that had been made upon 
it with the ineffable contempt it deserved. He declared that 
men did organize to rear churches and to make pins, to build 
schools and to sail ships, to construct roads and to manufacture 
toys, to spin cotton and to print books, to guard infancy in its 
weakness and old ago in its decrepitude and womanhood in its 
wretchedness; to complain that this prevailing principle had 
been applied to emigration was to complain of Providence and 
the irresistible tendencies implanted in man. 

Sumner insisted that organized colonization had been en- 
couraged in Greece and Eome, as well as in modern times, that 
Spain had sanctioned an association of Genoese merchants who 
first introduced slaves to this continent, that France licensed the 
Jesuits who colonized the regions of Canada and the Great 
Lakes and that it was nnder the auspices of Emigrant Aid Com- 
panies that the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, the Adventurers 
to Virginia and Oglethorpe and his companions to Georgia, 
and that at the present day similar associations were still direct- 
ing emigrants hither. For a long time the tide of emigration 
had steadily set from the North to the South, and especially 
from New England to the West, and when it became a question 
whether the tempting fields of Kansas were to be occupied for 
Freedom or for Slavery, organization was enlisted to stimulate 
this colonization thither. The first company for this purpose 
had been organized before the passage of the Nebraska Bill. 
But afterwards it had been rechartered and reorganized and it 
then became the mark for the shafts of the enemies of Freedom. 

He said : " It is not true that men have been hired by the 
Company to go to Kansas ; for every emigrant going under its 
direction himself provides the means for his journey. Of 
course, sir, it is not true, as is complained by the Senator from 
South Carolina, with that proclivity to error which marks all 
his utterances, that men have been sent by the Company with 
one uniform gun, Sharpe's rifle, for it has supplied no arms of 
any kind to anybody. It is not true that the Company has 
encouraged any fanatical aggression upon the people of Mis- 
souri; for it counsels order, peace, forbearance. It is not true 



320 I^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

that the Company has chosen its emigrants on account of 
political opinions, for it asks no question with regard to the 
opinion of any whom it aids and at this moment stands ready 
to forward those from the South as well as the North. * * * 
It is not true that the Company has sent persons merely to con- 
trol elections and not to remain in the Territory ; for its whole 
action, and all its anticipation of pecuniary profits are founded 
on the hope of stocking the country with permanent settlers. * * 

" Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to deserve success not 
to secure it ; and I know not how soon the efforts of Massa- 
chusetts will wear the crown of triumph. But it cannot be that 
she acts wrong for herself or her children when in this cause 
she encounters reproach. * * * What belongs to the faithful 
servant she will do in all things and Providence shall determine 
the result." 

This vindication of the Emigrant Aid Company did not stop 
the criticism of it that had been noticeable in the Congressional 
debates. But the information Sumner furnished of its plan of 
work and its purposes, together with the explanation of what 
it had already accomplished, as shown by the records of the 
society, showed how perfectly groundless the complaints of 
Southern statesmen were against it. The country saw it was 
pure declamation and the society felt that it had been suitably 
vindicated. 

At this point in his speech, Sumner yielded to a motion to 
adjourn, having spoken three hours. He resumed his speech 
the next day, speaking of the remedies for the situation. 

The recommendation of the President of an increased ap- 
propriation to enforce obedience to the laws, " whether Federal 
or local," he characterized as tyranny, for he insisted there were 
no local laws except those produced by the usurpation of Mis- 
souri hirelings, who had gone into the Territory and assumed 
the place of citizens. 

He was no less unsparing in his criticism of what he denom- 
inated the remedy of folly. 

" It comes," he said, " from the Senator from South Carolina 
(Butler), who at the close of a long speech, offered it as his 
single contribution to the adjustment of this question and who 
thus far stands alone in its support. It might, therefore, fitly 
bear his name, but that which I now give to it is a more sug- 
gestive synonym." 

" This proposition nakedly expressed, is, that the people of 
Kansas should be deprived of their arms." * * * 

"Really, sir, has it come to this? The rifle has ever been 
the companion of the pioneer, and, under God, his tutelary 



LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNEB 321 

protector against the red man and the beast of the forest. 
Never was this efficient weapon more needed in self defence than 
in Kansas ; and at least one article of our National Constitution 
must be blotted out before the complete right to it can be in 
any way impeached. And yet such is the madness of the hour, 
that in defiance of the solemn guarantee in the Amendments to 
the Constitution, that ' the right of the people to keep and bear 
arms shall not be infringed,' the people of Kansas are arraigned 
for keeping and bearing arms and the Senator from South 
Carolina has the face to say openly on this floor that they should 
be disarmed — of course that the fanatics of slavery, his allies 
and constituents, may meet no impediment. Sir, the Senator 
is venerable with years ; he is reputed to have also worn at home, 
in the State he represents, judicial honors, and he is placed here 
at the head of an important Committee occupied particularly 
with questions of law; but neither his years, nor his position 
past or present, can give respectability to the demand he makes 
or save him from indignant condemnation, when to compass the 
wretched purpose of a wretched cause he thus proposes to 
trample on one of the plainest provisions of Constitutional 
Liberty." 

Senator Douglas had proposed a third remedy, to authorize 
the Legislature, as soon as a census taken by its authority and 
the Governor's, disclosed a sufficient population to constitute a 
Congressional District, to provide by law for calling a conven- 
tion to form a constitution and apply for admission as a State. 
This, Sumner said, meant injustice and civil war. It provided 
for maintaining indefinitely the same state of anarchy that 
then prevailed. It placed the control of the whole matter in the 
usurping legislature that then existed and others to be elected, 
under the laws that it had passed, depriving of citizenship, on 
the one hand, all the friends of Freedom, who would not swear 
to support the Fugitive Slave Bill, and on the other hand cloth- 
ing with the right to vote all others who presented themselves 
with a fee of one dollar whether from Missouri or not. 

But as the true remedy, Sumner urged the prompt passage of 
the bill, moved by Seward as the substitute for that of Douglas, 
and providing for the immediate admission of Kansas as a 
State. This he urged, as a remedy for the existing troubles, 
and the only protection they could hope for against other and 
greater ones that threatened. He urged it as a measure of 
justice to the people who ought to have a right to create their 
own government for themselves. He insisted that in admitting 
them, with the Constitution they had already formed for them- 
selves, they only followed the precedent established in the ad- 



322 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

mission of Michigan and that to require them to have sucH a 
population, as the bill proposed by Douglas provided for, was ,, 
to place a condition ujjon Kansas that only three States ful-. 
filled, while fifteen others had fallen short, which three States- 
with Senators then on the floor did not fulfil and which three • 
colonies at the formation of the Union could not meet, viz., 
have a population of 93,000. Such a requisition laid upon 
Kansas was unjust, especially in view of conditions then exist- 
ing in the Territory. She did then have a population, as he 
estimated, of from 50,000 to G0,000, and eight States had been 
admitted whose population did not equal 60,000. So that there 
was no reason which could be drawn from precedent or from 
justice to forbid the immediate admission of Kansas with 
the Constitution she had already formed for herself. 

Sumner spoke feelingly of the attitude that had been main- 
tained by the Administration towards Kansas. Referring to 
the period of the American Revolution and our struggles with 
the Mother Country, he affirmed that there was hardly a com- 
plaint contained in the enumeration in the Declaration of 
Independence against the King of Great Britain that could not 
be urged with as much justice by the people of Kansas against 
the President. He had " sent swarms of officers to harrass their 
people," he '' had combined with others to subject them * * * 
and given his assent to acts of pretended legislation " ; he " had 
waged war against them," " excited domestic insurrection," and 
" to their repeated petitions had answered only by repeated 
injury." And, as the tyranny of the King had been renewed 
in the President, so Sumner urged, upon the floor of the Senate 
had been renewed the butt of sorry jest and supercilious as- 
sumption against the petitions of Kansas that had met the 
prayers of our fathers to the British Parliament. 

" With regi-et," here he said, " I come again upon the Senator 
from South Carolina (Butler) who omnipresent in this debate, 
overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has 
applied for admission as a State, and with incoherent phrase, 
discharges the loose expectoration of his speech now upon her 
Representative and then upon her people. There was no ex- 
travagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did 
not repeat ; nor was there any possible deviation from truth 
which he did not make with so much of passion, I gladly add, 
as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. 
But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure, 
— with error sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He 
shows an incapacity of accuracy in stating the Constitution or 
in stating the law, whether in detail of statistics or diversions 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 323 

of scholarsiiip. He cannot ope his mouth but out there flies 
a blundey, Surely he ought to be familiar with the life of 
Franklin, 'tod yet he refers to this household character, while 
acting as the agent of our fathers in England, as not above 
suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a 
false contrast '-with the agent of Kansas,— not knowing that, 
however the two may differ in genius and fame, they are 
absolutely alike in this experience, that Franklin when en- 
trusted with the petition from Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted 
by a foul-mouthed s])eaker where he could not be heard in de- 
fence, and denounced as ' thief ' even as the agent of Kansas is 
assaulted on this floor and denounced as ' forger.' And let 
not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by the parallel with 
the British Statesman of that day ; for it is only in hostility to 
Freedom that any parallel can be found." 

" But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of 
the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming as he announces 
' from a State,' — aye. Sir, from South Carolina — he turns with 
lordly disgust from this newly formed community, which he 
will not recognize even as ' a member of the body politic' Pray, 
Sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism ? Has he 
read the history of the ' State ' which he represents ? He can- 
not surely forget its imbecility from slavery, confessed through- 
out the Eevolution, followed by its more shameful assumption 
for slavery since. He cannot forget its wretched persistence in 
the slave trade, as the very apple of its eye, and the condition 
of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget its Con- 
stitution which is republican only in name, confirming power in 
the hands of the few, and founding the qualification of its 
legislators on ' a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of 
land and ten negroes.' And yet the Senator to whom this 
' State ' has in part committed the guardianship of its good 
name, instead of moving with backward treading steps to cover 
its nakedness, rushes forward in the very ecstacy of madness 
to expose it, by provoking comparison with Kansas. South 
Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts by 
centuries, when Kansas counts by years. But a beneficent 
example may be born in a day ; and 1 venture to declare, that 
against the two centuries of the older ' State ' may be set al- 
ready the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in 
the younger community. In the one is the long wail of Slavery ; 
in the other, the hymn of Freedom. And if we glance at special 
achievement, it will be difficult to find anything in the history 
of South Carolina which presents so much of heroic spirit, in 
an heroic cause as shines in that repulse of the Missouri in- 



324 I'lF^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

vaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the 
women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons 
of Rome who poured their jewels into the treasury for the 
public defence, the wives of Prussia who with delicate fingers 
clothed their defenders against the French invasion, the mothers 
of our own Revolution who sent forth their sons covered with 
prayers and blessings to combat for human rights did nothing 
of self sacrifice truer than did these women on this occasion. 
Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of ex- 
istence from its very beginning down to the day of the last 
election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civiliza- 
tion might lose — I do not say how little, but surely less than 
it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in that valiant 
struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new 
science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone are news- 
papers and schools, — and throughout this infant Territory there 
is more of educated talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, 
than in his vaunted ^ State.' Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator that 
Kansas, welcomed as a Free State, *a ministering angel shall 
be ' to the Republic, when South Carolina, in the cloak of dark- 
ness which she hugs, '^lies howling.' " 

"The Senator from Illinois (Douglas) naturally joins the 
Senator from South Carolina, and gives to this warfare the 
superior intensity of his nature. He thinks that the National 
Government has not completely proved its power, as it has never 
hanged a traitor, — but if occasion requires, he hopes there will 
be no hesitation, and this threat is directed at Kansas and even 
at the friends of Kansas throughout the country. Again occurs 
a parallel with the struggles of our fathers; and I borrow the 
language of Patrick Henry when to the cry of the Senator of 
' Treason ! Treason ! ' I reply, ' If this be treason make the 
most of it.' Sir, it is easy to call names; but I beg to tell the 
Senator, that if the word ' traitor ' is in any way applicable to 
those who reject a tyrannical usurpation whether in Kansas or 
elsewhere then must some new word of deeper color be invented 
to designate those mad spirits who would endanger and degrade 
the Republic, while they betray all the cherished sentiments of 
the Fathers and the spirit of the Constitution, that slavery may 
have new spread. Let the Senator proceed. Not the first 
time in history will a scaffold become the pedestal of honor. 
Out of death comes life and the traitor whom he blindly exe- 
cutes will live immortal in the cause." 

" Among these hostile senators is yet another, with all the 
prejudice of the Senator from South Carolina, but w'''^hout his 
generous impulses who from his character before th '■ntry, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 325 

and the rancor of his opposition, deserves to be so named: I 
mean the Senator from Virginia (Mason) who as author of 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associated himself with a special 
act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of him I shall say little, for 
he has said little in this debate, though within that little he has 
compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed in support of 
Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia, but he does 
not represent that early Virginia, so dear to our hearts which 
gave us the pen of Jefferson, by which the equality of men was 
declared, and the sword of Washington by which Independence 
was secured ; he represents that other Virginia, from which 
Wasliington and Jefferson avert their faces, where human beings 
are bred as cattle for the shambles and a dungeon rewards the 
pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bond- 
age by reading the Book of Life. It is proper that such a 
Senator representing such a State, should rail against Free 
Kansas." 

" Such as these are natural enemies of Kansas and I intro- 
duce them with reluctance, simply that the country may un- 
derstand the character of the hostility to be overcome." 

Such as these he said were the powers necessary to be over- 
come to bring Freedom to Kansas. This was the duty that was 
now laid upon Congress; and to be accomplished, it must lay 
asid^ all machinations of candidates and party politics and 
turning from the slave oligarchy so long in control of the Re- 
public dedicate itself to this great work. Except for slavery it 
would not dare to refuse this act of justice, law and order. But 
the slave power dared anything; and it could be conquered only 
by the united masses of the People. To them, therefore, he ap- 
pealed. Already public opinion was gathering and the indig- 
nant utterance was finding expression through the press, and in 
daily conversation, wherever men met. Against every man, 
whether in office or out of it, whose hand had been set to the re- 
moval of the ancient Landmark of Freedom, the imprecation of 
the People would be laid. They would unite once more with the 
Fathers of the Republic in just condemnation of Slavery. For 
this, Kansas stood forth patiently waiting, but with no uncer- 
tain issue. She offered herself for admission to the Union but 
only as a Free State. 

In conclusion he pointed out that the contest beginning in 
Kansas, would soon be transferred from Congress to the people 
about to vote for a Chief Magistrate of the Republic. And he 
appealed to the ballot-box of the Union to protect the ballot- 
box of Kansas and the voters, while rejoicing in their own rights 



326 ^^^^ 0^ CHARLES SUMNER 

everywhere, to help guard the equal rights of their distant 
fellow citizens. 

He closed near three p. M. having spoken altogether five 
hours. And soon as he was seated the effect of his speech was 
apparent. Cass was the first on his feet to reply. He had heard 
it he said " with equal regret and surprise " — a speech " the 
most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the 
ears of the members of this high body." Douglas followed, 
coarse in personalities. " He seems to get up a speech as in 
Yankee-land they get up a bed-quilt * * * made of old calico 
dresses of various colors ; " growing virtuous, " We have another 
dish of the classics served up — classic allusions, each one only 
distinguished for its lasciviousness and obscenity, — each one 
drawn from those portions of the classics which all decent pro- 
fessors in respectable colleges cause to be suppressed as unfit for 
decent young men to read. Sir, I cannot repeat the words. I 
should be condemned as unworthy of entering decent society, if 
I repeated those obscene, vulgar terms which have been used at 
least a hundred times in that speech." Again, " The senator 
from Massachusetts had his speech written, printed, committed 
to memory, practised every night before the glass with a negro 
boy to hold the candle and watch the gestures, and annoying the 
boarders in the adjoining rooms until they were forced to quit 
the house." Mason followed : " I am constrained to hear here 
depravity, vice, in its most odious form, uncoiled in this pre- 
sence, exhibiting its loathsome deformities in accusation and 
vilification against the quarter of the country from which I 
come ; and I must listen to it because it is a necessity of my posi- 
tion, under a common government, to recognize as an equal 
politically one whom to see elsewhere is to shun and despise." 

The " classic allusions " and " vilification " to which the ref- 
erences are made have been quoted and the reader can see 
for himself what foundation there was for these thrusts. It 
was not unusual for Southerners by laughing and talking in an 
undertone among themselves, making trifling allusions to what 
was said and in such ways to annoy an anti-slavery speaker. 
Sumner experienced this while speaking and he had asked the 
sergeant at arms to preserve order, when he was in turn called 
to order by them for not addressing his request to the presid- 
ing officer. When Mason closed, Sumner's patience was ex- 
hausted and he was on his feet again. 

Reminded of the friendly relations that had existed between 
himself and Cass both in Europe and America, he declined to 
enter into A controversy with him, regretting that Cass had so 
far forgotten them as to meet his argument with abuse. 



LIFE OF CHARLEB HUMKIER 327 

He said; ''.Mr. President, — Tlirce Senators have spoken; 
one venerable in years with whom 1 have had associations of 
personal regard longer than with anybody now within the 
sound of iny voice, the Senator from Michigan; another the 
Senator fi'om Illinois and a third the Senator from Vir- 
ginia." 

" To the Senator from Illinois I should willingly yield the 
privilege of the common scold, — the last word; but I will not 
yield to him in any discussion with me, the last argument or 
the last semblance of it. He has crowned the outrage of this 
debate by venturing to rise here and calumniate me. He has 
said that I came here, took an oath to support the Constitution, 
and yet determined not to support a particular clause in that 
Constitution. To this statement I give to his face the flattest 
denial. AYhen it was made previously on this floor by the absent 
Senator from South Carolina, I then repelled it." * * * 

" Sir, this is the Senate of the United States, an important 
body under the Constitution, with great powers. Its members 
are justly supposed, from years, to be above the intemperance of 
youth, and from character to be above the gusts of vulgarity. 
They are supposed to have something of wisdom and something 
of that candor which is the handmaid of wisdom. Let the 
Senator bear these things in mind and remember hereafter that 
the bowie-knife and bludgeon are not proper emblems of sena- 
torial debate. Let him remember that the swagger of Bob 
Acres and the ferocity of the Malay cannot add dignity to this 
body. The Senator infused into his speech the venom swel- 
tering for months, — aye for years; and he has alleged matters 
entirely without foundation, in order to heap upon me some 
personal obloquy. I will not descend to things which dropped 
so naturally from his tongue. I only brand them to his face as 
false. I say also to that Senator, and I wish him to bear it in 
mind, that no person with the upright form of man can be al- 
lowed — " (hesitating) 

Douglas. " Say it." 

Sumner. " I will say it, — no person with the upright form 
of man can be allowed, without violation of all decency to switch 
out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive person- 
ality. Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least on 
this floor. The noisome squat, and the nameless animal to 
which I now refer is not the proper model for an American 
Senator. Will the Senator from Illinois take notice?" 

Douglas. " I will — and therefore will not imitate you, Sir." 

Sumner. " I did not hear the Senator." 

Douglas. " I said if that be the case, I would certainly never 



328 ^^^-E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

imitate you, in that capacity, — recognizing the foDn of the illus- 
tration." 

Sumner. " Mr. President, again the Senator <?witches his 
tongue and again he fills the Senate with its offeLsive odor. 
But I drop the Senator." 

" There was still another, the Senator from Virginia, who is 
now also in my eye. That Senator said nothing of argument 
and therefore there is nothing of that to be answered. I simply 
say to him that hard words are not argument, frowns are not 
reasons nor do scowls belong to the proper arsenal of parlia- 
mentary debate. The Senator has not forgotten that on a 
former occasion I did something to exhibit the plantation 
manners which he displays. I will not do any more now." 

From these personal parts of Sumner's speech, and they 
have all been given, the reader can judge whether there was any 
thing said of Butler and South Carolina or even of Douglas and 
Mason that would justify the assault that was soon after made 
on Sumner by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina. He 
claimed that the words quoted were a libel upon Butler and 
South Carolina. Having the language before him the reader 
can judge of this question for himself. 

The speech, however, has a merit, independent of this cir- 
cumstance. It was one of the greatest efforts of Sumner's 
life and it was a large influence in the election which followed, 
and so among the factors in the destruction of slavery. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE ASSAULT UPON SUMNER BY PRESTON S. BROOKS — ^ACTION OF 

CONGRESS RESIGNATION AND RE-ELECTION OF BROOKS — 

APPROVAL OF THE ACT BY THE SOUTH — FEELING AROUSED 
BY IT IN THE NORTH — DEATHS OF BROOKS, KEITT AND 
BUTLER 

By the speeches Sumner had made against slavery he had in- 
curred the settled displeasure of the Southern men in Congress. 
He was the most fearless and outspoken of the Free-Soilers. 
His speeches were carefully prepared, attractive and widely cir- 
culated and read. When delivered in the Senate, by reason of 
the exhaustive treatment of the subject they might seem cumber- 
some but not SO to intelligent readers by the fireside at home. 
They were peculiarly effective in arousing public sentiment. 
Naturally at this latest protest against the extension of slavery 
the Southern Members felt resentment; and the bitterness they 
freely expressed not unnaturally found a disordered mind to 
give it effect. 

John A. Bingham, a Representative of Ohio, who had heard 
the speech and seeing, in the faces of the Southerners, the dis- 
pleasure with which it was received, warned Sumner of the 
danger of personal injury he was encountering. His colleague 
Wilson and Representatives Schuyler Colfax and Anson G. 
Burlingame, sharing the. same feelmg of apprehension, at the 
close of the session, proposed .to accompany him home. But 
Sumner always slow to believe harm of others, laughingly put 
aside their fears and quietly slipped away by himself. Subse- 
quent events, however, showed that they were right in their 
apprehension for his safety. A plot to waylay him on his 
way to the Capitol on the two succeeding days failed of exe- 
cution only by reason of his taking unaccustomed routes. But 
the miscarriage of their plots only delayed the execution of the 
purpose. 

Preston S. Brooks the assailant was a Representative of 
South Carolina. He was an attorney by profession and the son 
of an attorney. He came from an obscure District in the 
western part of the State, living in the little village of Ninety- 
six in the midst of a region of rich plantations, where to this 
day the current of the world's vigorous life seldom reaches. He 
329 



330 LIFE OF CHARLE8^§UMNER 

was a very large, powerfully built man, more than six feet in 
height, somewhat slovenly in his dress, wearing his clothes 
laro-e and hanging loosely about his spare frame, the collar 
of his shirt carelessly rolled and held in place by a four-in-hand 
tie dangling on his bosom, his hair long after the manner of 
Southerners of that day. He was retiring in his disposition, 
having few intimates and taking little part in the proceedings 
of the House. In fact the one act in his Congressional career 
that rescues his name from oblivion is the brutal assault he 
made on Sumner. Except for this, he would not be remem- 
bered outside of his District and hardly there. Sumner did 
not know him at all and, therefore, private considerations could 
have had nothing to do with his conduct. He was distantly 
connected with Senator Butler, his father having been Butler's 
cousin and so he claimed the right to avenge an alleged libel 
upon him and his State, contained in Sumner's speech. Brooks 
represented the extreme passion and prejudice of the South, 
whose feeling against Sumner had been provoked to violence by 
his persistent and telling agitation against Slavery. His con- 
federates were Eepresentatives Keitt of South Carolina and 
Edmundson of Virginia. 

The testimony of what occurred was taken under oath by a 
Congressional Committee. It thus appeared that Bingham, who 
had warned Sumner at the close of the session of Tuesday, had 
no ground for his apprehensions, but his own conclusions drawn 
from the looks and conduct of Southern Members and their 
friends and the expressions of Douglas and Mason during the 
debate. Brooks had been a listener to Sumner's speech on the 
first day, but had not heard the part delivered on the second, 
though he had heard it discussed by Southern men and women, 
at hotels and in the lobbies of the Capitol and thus received ex- 
aggerated reports of what had been said, in his a])sence. He had 
not read any of it, though while making the assault he said he 
had. His mind was inflamed with the thought that he would 
be doing his section a service by assaulting and punishing 
Sumner for the words he had spoken. 

He lay in wait for Sumner for an hour or more at the Penn- 
sylvania Avenue approach to the Capitol before the opening of 
tiie Senate on the day succeeding the speech, but Sumner had 
gone in by another way and he missed him. There he met 
Edmundson and they talked of his purpose and together they 
waited till the lateness of the hour persuaded them that their 
longer stay would be in vain. They met again there at the same 
hour on the next day and again they waited, but Sumner had 
gone earlier to the Senate and they were again disappointed. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 33I 

Brooks told Edmundson that he would attack Svimner there if 
he walked to the Capitol, but if he drove he would hurry up the 
steps and meet hirn, in the Rotunda, or on the other side of the 
Capitol, where the carriages were accustomed to stop. But Ed- 
mundson, nicely calculating the chances of this knightly en- 
counter thus planned, reminded him that the labor of ascending 
the steps to reach the proposed place of attack would necessarily 
exhaust him and unfit him for the assault ; and that plan was 
accordingly abandoned. So the two went into the Capitol to- 
gether, parting in the Rotunda, Edmundson going to the House 
and Brooks to the Senate. 

The Senate remained in session but a few minutes to hear 
the eulogy of Senator Geyer of Missouri on the death of Repre- 
sentative Miller of the same State, when out of respect for the 
deceased, it adjourned at 12.45 p. M,^ the House having, 
adjourned fifteen minutes earlier. Sumner after the adjourn- 
ment of the Senate, remained in his seat writing. To several 
persons who came to him he excused himself with the state- 
ment that he wished to complete some work for a mail that was 
about closing. He sat close up to his desk with his feet and 
legs well under it. Being a large man aixl the desk small 
for him, he could not rise without first pushing his chair back 
so as to release his legs. His head was well down over the desk 
intent on the work before him and he did not see what was 
passing about him. 

Brooks reached the Senate before its adjournment and stood 
leaning against the side of the entrance to the main-aisle not 
more than twenty feet from Sumner's chair and behind him. 
When the Senate adjourned, the most of the Senators passed 
out. Brooks then entered the Chamber and seated himself 
across the aisle, but nearer Sumner. Seeing a lady present, he 
asked an officer of the Senate to get her out, but the officer see- 
ing no rea?on for doing so, declined. Brooks then went out of 
the Chamber to Edmundson and proposed that he should send 
in for Sumner to come out, but Edm.undson suggested that 
Sumner would probably only send for Brooks to come in and 
so interfere with his other plans. Brooks therefore returned 
to the Chamber. Edmundson remained at the entrance while 
Keitt stood waiting behind the Vice-President's chair. 

Brooks passed directly to Sumner's chair. Sumner did not 
notice his presence till he heard some one call his name, when 
looking up he caught the words ; " I have read your speech over 
twice carefully; it is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler 
who is a relative of mine " — and while he was still speaking and 
apparently without finishing the sentence, the tall powerfully 



332 ^^^^ OP CHARLES SUMNER 

built stranger raised a heavy cane and struck liim with all hi=i 
force over the head. Sumner threw up his arms and endeavored 
to protect himself but the first blow blinded him and Brooks 
continued to rain blow after blow upon his head as hard and 
as fast as he could, wounding also Sumner's arms and his 
hands, 

Sumner was pinioned down, with the desk fastened to the 
floor and his chair, holding his legs so that he was completely 
at the mercy of his assailant. He was entirely unarmed, and 
besides had no opportunity to use a weapon. But being a 
powerful man, in the agony of his struggles, he wrenched the 
desk from its fastenings and staggered forward endeavoring 
to escape the blows. He could not see his assailant who had 
grabbed him by the collar and standing above him in the de- 
gcending aisle, continued the blows even after the cane was 
broken and Sumner had fallen senseless and bleeding at his feet. 
His arm was stayed at last and he was forced away from Sum- 
ner by Eepresentatives Morgan and Murray of New York, who 
though fifty feet away and standing with their backs turned, 
upon their attention being attracted, had promptly rushed to 
Sumner's rescue. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky hurried to 
his assistance from another direction, openly and emphatically 
condemning the conduct of Brooks. Keitt ran to the assistance 
of Brooks and threatened to strike Crittenden crying to him, 
" Let them alone. G — d d — n you ! " Edmundson rushed in to 
Brooks' assistance from another direction. And cries were 
heard: "Don't interfere!" "Go it, Brooks!" "Give the 
d — d Abolitionist h — 1 ! " etc. Keitt like Brooks was armed 
with a cane, which he flourished as he came forward, threaten- 
ing those who interfered and he kept his hand upon a pistol 
ready for use. 

Toombs of Georgia at the commencement of the assault stood 
in front of the Vice-President's chair in plain view, talking to 
Governor Gorman of Minnesota. They observed the assault 
from its commencement. Gorman started to interfere but 
Toombs stood still. He made no effort to protect Sumner, after- 
wards stating that he approved the assault ; but seeing tlie dan- 
ger that Crittenden, a Southern Senator, had encountered in his 
effort to rescue Sumner, he went to his protection. Slidell, of 
Louisiana, and Douglas were near at hand in an ante-room, en- 
gaged in conversation, when a messenger rushed up and an- 
nounced that some one was assaulting Mr. Sumner. Neither 
attempted to interfere. Slidell afterwards said that he heard 
of the assault without " any particular emotion ; for his own 
part he confessed he felt none, that he had no associations or 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 333 

relations of any kind with Sumner and had not spoken to him 
for two years." Yet Slidell it was who had thanked Sumner 
five years before for his "chivalrous and zealous" defence of 
his brother, the captain of the Somers, against the charge of 
wrongfully hanging the son of the Secretary of War and his co- 
conspirators. 

Sumner in a measure lost consciousness with the first blow 
and when he recovered he was lying in the aisle of the chamber 
with his head supported on the knee of Mr. Morgan. Dazed 
and half unconscious as he was, he thought he saw liis assailant 
standing, still gazing intent upon him, supported on either side 
by Douglas and Toombs. As to Douglas, who had not left the 
anteroom, he was mistaken. While Sumner was being assisted 
from the Chamber to a sofa in the lobby, by Mr. Morgan and 
James W. Simonton, a reporter for the New York Times, and 
others, he recognized Slidell retreating before him. His wounds 
were dressed by a physician who was hastily summoned and he 
was removed by his colleague Wilson and Eepresentative Buf- 
fington in a carriage, still only partially conscious, to his room. 

Upon examination it was found that he had received num- 
erous wounds, two principal gashes, one over each ear and a 
little back, each about two inches long and laying the flesh 
open to the bone. Others more or less severe to the number of 
twenty or more were on different parts of the head and arms and 
hands. Blood flowed copiously from the wounds, especially 
from those on the head, so that his coat and waistcoat and the 
collar and bosom of his shirt were, in places, saturated. So 
much had flowed upon the shoulders of his coat that it soaked 
through the broadcloth and padding of the shoulders and ap- 
peared through the lining. " He was covered with blood," ac- 
cording to General Webb, afterwards Minister to Brazil, as he 
" never saw man covered before." Another witness, William J. 
Leader, though belonging to a different political party, de- 
clared that " it was one of the most cold-blooded, high-handed 
outrages ever committed and that had not Mr. Sumner been 
a very large and powerfully built man it must have resulted in 
his death." The hands and cuffs of Mr. Morgan who supported 
his head were covered with his blood. 

The weapon with which he was assaulted was a walking-stick 
made of gutta-percha, one inch in diameter at the larger end 
and tapering to five-eighths, at the smaller. It was broken 
with the weight of the blows. Owing to its weight, when used 
by a powerful man, it was a murderous weapon. The physical 
condition of Sumner and the masses of his full head of hair, 
which he wore long at the time, probably saved his life. 



334 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Promptly the morning after the assault, Wilson arose in his 
place in the Senate and recited the circumstances of the as- 
sault, but having done this much he left it for other Senators 
to decide what measures should be taken. The Free-Soilers 
were largely in the minority and it had been agreed among 
them that it should be left to the opposition to propose a remedy 
and that Sumner's friends would do nothing more than state 
the case unless it should appear that the Democrats would pro- 
pose nothing. After Wilson's statement, a short silence fol- 
lowed and the Presiding officer was calling for other business, 
when Seward arose and moved the appointment by the Chair 
of a committee of five to inquire into the circumstances of the 
assault and report a statement of the facts and their opinion 
thereon to the Senate. Wilson seconded it. Mason moved to 
amend so that the Senate instead of the Presiding officer would 
select the committee and the motion thus amended was carried. 
Seward and Wilson, the movers, who, according to all rules, 
should have been selected, were excluded from the committee 
and those chosen were all from the opposition. Two of the 
five were from the Slave States ; another was Cass. The com- 
mittee reported that the Senate had no power to arrest or pun- 
ish a Member of the House and that all they could do was to 
complain to that body. A copy of the affidavits taken by the 
committee and of their report was ordered sent to it. 

When the testimony of Sumner was read, giving his recol- 
lection of the conduct of Toombs, Slidell and Douglas during 
the assault, it called forth explanations from them and Butler 
who had in the meantime returned to Washington. They ap- 
proved the conduct of Brooks. This brought the Free-Soilers 
to their feet. 

Wade said that he proposed to vindicate the right of free 
speech, though he had to come armed to do so. 

Wilson said it was " a brutal, murderous and cowardly as- 
sault." To which Butler ejected, " You are a liar ! " This 
furnished its own comment upon the conduct of Brooks, when 
seeking to justify his act, by the language used by Sumner of 
Butler. 

In the House on the day after the assault, Campbell of Ohio, 
moved the appointment of a committee by the Speaker to in- 
vestigate and report the facts with such resolutions as in its 
judgment would vindicate the House. Campbell with four 
others were appointed, three Northern Free-Soilers and two 
Southern Democrats, all able men. This committee was sin- 
cere in its efforts to investigate the circumstances of the assault. 
It invited Brooks to be present and ask the witnesses any ques- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 335 

tions he desired. It took the testimony of Sumner at his rooms, 
he being unable to attend the sittings, and it called other wit- 
nesses to the facts, before it, and subjected them all to an ex- 
amination under oath, both sides being represented. It occupied 
five days with the investigation and on the sixth made reports 
to the House, The majority reported that it was an unpro- 
voked outrage in violation of the privileges of both the Senate 
and the House and of the provision of the Constitution which 
declared that a member " for any speech or debate in either 
house shall not be questioned in any other place." It con- 
cluded with a resolution for the expulsion of Brooks and of 
censure of Keitt and Edmundson. It was signed by the three 
Free-Soilers, Campbell of Ohio, Spinner of New York and 
Pennington of New Jersey. The minority composed of Cobb of 
Georgia and Greenwood of Arkansas reported that the House 
had no jurisdiction of the case and declined to express any 
opinion on the facts. 

The House refused to adopt the report of Cobb and Green- 
wood, by a vote of sixty-six yeas and one hundred and forty-five 
nays. The resolution of expulsion was lost, yeas one hundred 
and twenty-one, nays ninety-five, it not having received the 
necessary two-thirds vote. Keitt was censured; Edmundson 
was not. 

As soon as the vote on the resolution of expulsion was taken, 
Brooks arose and with some difficulty obtained permission to 
address the House. Giddings opposed it, but finally yielded to 
the persuasion of friends and withdrew his objection. Brooks 
then proceeed in a braggart speech in which he insinuated that 
" a blow struck by him then, would be followed by a revolution, 
which would result in subverting the foundations of the Gov- 
ernment and in drenching the Hall of Congress in blood," ad- 
mitted that he had committed the assault " very deliberately " 
and insinuated that if Sumner had resisted he would have 
killed him. He closed by declaring that he was no longer a 
member of the House. He had already placed his resignation 
in the hands of the Governor of his State to take effect when he 
announced it himself in Congress. By this means he prevented 
any farther action being taken against him by the House. 

Mason and Butler sat near him in the House while he spoke 
and when he finished and walked out of the door he was 
met by Southern women who were present to congratulate him. 
Keitt also resigned, to procure the indorsement of his constit- 
uents, upon his conduct. Both were promptly re-elected, with 
substantial unanimity and were back in their places in the 



336 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

House within a few days, completely purged of the political 
consequences of their deeds. 

The criminal punishment inflicted was hardly less a farce. 
A comphiint was made against Brooks alone and he was in- 
dicted by the Grand Jury. He appeared in court, attended by 
a coterie of Southern friends, among whom were Mason and 
Butler, admitted the assault, but sought to justify it in a speech 
likening himself to husbands who defend their wounded honor. 
He was fined three hundred dollars and discharged without 
imprisonment. Sumner took no part in the prosecution, ex- 
cept when subpoenaed to appear and testify before the Grand 
Jury. He disclaimed all responsibility for it, realizing that 
any punishment would be inadequate for the injuries he had 
received and the hopelessness of expecting proper consideration 
for the case from the courts of the District, as then constituted. 

But Sumner never held Brooks personally responsible. He 
considered him as the irresponsible agent of slavery which he 
regarded as the guilty principal deserving the punishment. 
During his long years of suffering, no one heard him speak 
unkindly of Brooks, but as soon as he reached his rooms after 
the assault, he declared that whenever he was able to return to 
the Senate he would renew the warfare against slavery. Years 
after, when one day walking in the Congressional Cemetery at 
Washington, his companion, George William Curtis, called his 
attention to a cen<)taph of Brooks, which Sumner had not be- 
fore noticed. His only remark was, " Poor fellow ! Poor fel- 
low ! " To the question then asked by Curtis, " How did you 
feel about Brooks ? " He replied : " Only as to a brick that 
should fall upon my head from a chimney. He was the uncon- 
scious agent of a malign power.'' 

The feeling aroused by the assault was tremendous. The 
opinion has been ventured that no other event except a na- 
tional victory or defeat was ever attended in this country with 
so much excitement. It was not regarded simply as the assault 
of one man upon another, whatever prominence might be given 
to the principals. The parties were treated as two rival powers, 
Freedom and Slavery, and the assault as the attitude of the 
contending forces towards each otlier. Before the assault af- 
fairs in Kansas had arrested the attention of the country, as a 
condition bordering closely upon civil war; but the South op- 
posed all discussion of the slavery question. Now the North 
felt that the South was determined to suppress, by the bludgeon, 
the right of free thought and free speech. Though it was never 
proved, the conviction was wide spread, at the time, that the act 
of Brooks was the result of a conference of Southern statesmen 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 337 

whereat it was determined that the North must be silenced by 
an example, made of Sumner. The act of an obscure Repre- 
sentative, whose name was hardly known beyond his own Dis: 
trict in staining the floor of the Senate Chamber with the blood 
of a Senator, who sat quietly writing at his desk, sent a wave 
of passion over the country. 

When Sumner's colleague Wilson followed Wade in answering 
the speeches of Toombs and Slidell approving the assault, by 
pronouncing it " brutal, murderous and cowardly ", this lan- 
guage incensed Brooks and he soon after by the hand of Joseph 
Lane of Oregon, later, on the ticket with John C. Breckenridge 
of Kentucky, a candidate for Vice-President, sent Wilson a 
challenge to a duel. 

A few days later, in a debate on the Kansas bill, Butler un- 
dertook to reply to Sumner's speech. His answer abounded in 
personalities. With much unction he said that against the 
complaints of his friends, he had "kept up an intercourse with 
Sumner which was calculated to give him a currency far beyond 
what he might have had." This speech brought Wilson to his 
feet who, after ridiculing " the piny wood doctrine — the planta- 
tion idea " that Butler could give Charles Sumner social stand- 
ing anywhere, then proceeded at length to enumerate the in- 
stances and quote the language of Butler in his speeches, to show 
that ever since Sumner entered the Senate, he had been wilfully 
insulting and aggravating towards him. 

In the House the display of feeling was greater than in the 
Senate. 

Burlingame, one of the Boston members denounced the act 
" in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters 
respect" and said that in a place hitherto sacred against vio- 
lence he had smote Sumner as Cain smote his brother. 

For this language Brooks sent a challenge to Burlingame, 
which was accepted. Campbell, who had the arrangement of 
the preliminaries, fixed the Clifton House, Canada, as the place 
of meeting; and Burlingame, late at night, left Washington to 
keep the appointment, but he was recalled. Brooks having de- 
clined. His excuse was that in the excited state of feeling, in 
the North, it would be unsafe for him to pass through it to 
reach Canada. 

But the large vote for expulsion made Southerners feel they 
had gone too far. The Northern and Western members were 
harmonious. Instead of the usual self-confident one. South- 
erners adopted an apologizing tone in meeting the indignation 
awakened by the deed. Public feeling and the fear that it 



338 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ir.i,!:^ht influence the National election, in which they hoped 
again to be successful were having an effect upon them. 

These considerations were, however, little felt in the South- 
land. There the feeling was one of general congratulation. 
There may have been individuals who hesitated to adopt the 
act, actuated by opposition to slavery or abhorrence of the 
deed or cautioned by the clouds that seemed to be gathering, 
which their less thoughtful neighbors had not observed ; but if 
so they were silent in the presence of the uniform and uncon- 
trollable rejoicing of their neighbors that the wilful spirit of 
interference with their institution had at last been rebuked by 
physical force. The act of Brooks was generally indorsed, in 
the States that were afterwards in rebellion. 

Within a week after the assault some South Carolinians to 
show their appreciation of his act presented Brooks with a 
cane bearing the inscription, " Hit him again." Another cane 
was presented to him by the students of the University of Vir- 
ginia. 

The attitude of the newspapers of the South was frankly 
stated by The Richmond Examiner when it said that they 
" applauded the conduct of Brooks without condition or limi- 
tation, that their approbation was entire and unreserved." 

But the South was not more united in the support of Brooks 
than the North was in support of Sumner. The Legislature 
of Massachusetts, the Ministers of Boston and the Abolition 
Convention at Syracuse, New York, condemned it. There was 
a monster meeting held in New York city, which was ad- 
dressed by William Cullen Bryant and others, William M. 
Evarts presented the resolutions, which after narrating the 
facts declared that there was nothing " in the meditation, the 
preparation or the execution of this outrage by Brooks which 
should qualify the condemnation with which they pronounced 
it, brutal, murderous and cowardly." Two meetings were held 
in Boston, one at Chapman's Hall, addressed by Wendell Phil- 
lips; another at Faneuil Hall addressed by the Governor of 
Massachusetts, and others; one at Cambridge addressed by 
Felton, Sparks, Longfellow and others. Meetings in condemna- 
tion of the act were also held at Canandaigua, N. Y., Provi- 
dence, R. I., and Concord, Mass, 

The address of Ralph Waldo Emerson at the Concord meet- 
ing contained a discriminating tribute to Sumner: "I think. 
Sir," he said, " if Mr. Sumner had any vices, we should be 
likely to hear of them. They have fastened their eyes like 
microscopes, now for five years, on every act, word, manner and 
movement, to find a flaw, — and with what result? His oppo- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



339 



nents accuse hijii neither of drunkenness, nor debauchery, nor 
job, nor peculation, nor rapacity, nor personal aim of any kind. 
No; but with what? Why, beyond this charge which it is im- 
possible was ever sincerely made, that he broke over the pro- 
prieties of debate, I find him accused of publishing his opinion 
of the Nebraska conspiracy in a letter to the people of the 
United States, with discourtesy. Then that he is an Abolition- 
ist, as if every sane human being were not an Abolitionist, or a 
believer that all men should be free. And the third crime he 
stands charged with is, that his speeches were written before 
they were spoken; which of course must be true in Mr. Sum- 
ner's case,— as it was true of Webster, of Adams, of Calhoun, 
of Burke, of Chatham, of Demosthenes, of every first-rate 
speaker that ever lived. It is the high compliment he pays to 
the intelligence of the Senate and of the country. When the 
same reproach was cast upon the first orator of ancient times 
by some caviller of his day, he said, ' I should be ashamed to 
come with one unconsidered word before such an assembly.'" 

"Mr. Chairman, when I think of these most small faults as 
the worst which party hatred could allege, I think I may bor- 
row the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac 
Newton, and say that Charles Sumner * has the whitest soul I 
ever knew.' " 

Sumner's European friends were astonished at the assault 
and declared that it revealed a condition of things in the United 
States inexplicable to Englishmen. And right well it might. 
It was a decided jar to the people of the North. The whole 
affair, in its inception, its execution and its conclusion in the 
South, furnished an object lesson of the political condition of 
the country as caused by slavery that had not been realized 
before. 

While the proceedings for the expulsion of Brooks were pend- 
ing, in the House, the National Conventions had been held. 
The Republicans had united on the issue between the North 
and the South. For President they had nominated John C. 
Fremont, a young man with a career having all the interest of 
fiction, an ideal candidate for a new party. The Democrats had 
nominated James Buchanan ; and the pro-slavery wing of the 
American party nominated Fillmore. The contest was a warm 
one. The assault of Brooks and his later brag that a blow by 
him would dissolve the Union, entered into the campaign. The 
Republicans declared that they did not want a Union that was 
held together at the pleasure of one man. Sumner thus became 
an issue in the campaign and there was an unprecedented de- 
mand for copies of his speech. It became a campaign docu- 



340 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ment and was circulated by the hundred thousand. It was 
printed in the newspapers and there were large pamphlet edi- 
tions at Washington, New York and Boston and San Fran- 
cisco. It appeared in German and Welsh and was reprinted in 
London. 

It may not be amiss to follow the other parties to this tragedy 
a step farther. Brooks lived to return to Congress, at its next 
session, and to make a speech for slavery. But he did not live 
to see the close of the session. His manner and appearance 
changed ; his black hair turned gray, he seemed nervous and ill- 
at-ease, casting furtive glances about him wherever he went, as 
if fearful of retribution, silent and dissatisfied ; men and women 
of the North, who had mingled with him before, now avoided 
him ; he had no associates except from his own section. The 
notoriety he had acquired became distasteful to him; he con- 
fessed he was tired of appearing as the prince of bullies. Sum- 
ner narrowly escaped death at his hands, and his vacant 
chair in the Senate Chamber reminded him while he lived 
of the suffering he had caused. Remorse for his deed seemed 
to seize him and affect his health. But it did not last long. 
Near the close of January, 1857, he contracted a cold and after 
a brief illness, so brief that it was not known to the public, it 
took the form of a violent croup, or inflammation of the throat 
and he died suddenly a terrible death, struggling and gasping 
for breath, gripping his throat and apparently trying to tear it 
open. No physician was at hand to afford him relief. 

The news of his death went out among his associates in 
Washington, and over the country, and recalled the wounds in- 
flicted upon Sumner, still less than a year old, with the circum- 
stances fresh in men's minds. A feeling seemed to prevail 
that the same Power which apparently had avenged this wrong 
might also avenge the wrongs of the slaves. 

Two days after his death, eulogies were pronounced upon 
Brooks in the House, but in them there was, with one exception 
ill-starred and in bad taste, no reference to the assault upon 
Sumner. The same day he was buried from the House, in the 
Congressional Cemetery at Washington, where a cenotaph 
remains to mark the spot. Two weeks later his body was re- 
moved to its final resting-place in the Baptist Churchyard at 
Edgefield, South Carolina, the place of his birth. Here with a 
public funeral, a eulogy, with civil and military display, it was 
laid in the family lot beside that of his father and mother and 
other relatives. Over it rises a monument to his memory, the 
most conspicuous in the cemetery, though there also lies the 
body of Pickens, the Governor of South Carolina, when the first 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 34I 

gun of the Confederacy was fired upon Fort Sumter. The 
shaft has on it the sentence from Keitt's Congressional eulogy ; 
" Earth has never pillowed upon her bosom a truer son, nor 
Heaven opened wide her gates to receive a manlier spirit ! " 
And so with marked honor, was laid to rest by the South this 
champion of her peculiar institution. It was an example to her 
young men, who in defence of the same cause, later sought glorj 
upon other fields. 

A little later, on the 25th of May, 1857, Butler died at his 
home in South Carolina. Keitt lived to take an active and vin- 
dictive part in the Eebellion and died in battle in 1864, having 
lived long enough to sec the Confederacy his hands had con- 
tributed to form, crumbling to pieces. He lies to-day buried, in 
an unmarked spot, near Saint Matthew, South Carolina, only 
one county intervening between his grave and that of Brooks. 
Of them all, Edmundson alone survived the Civil War. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

NATURE OF SUMNER's INJURIES GOES TO SILVER SPRINGS, TO 

PHILADELPHIA, CAPE MAY AND CRESSON SPRINGS — HONORS 

PUBLIC INTEREST IN HIM PUBLIC RECEPTION AT 

BOSTON 

At first Sumner's wounds seemed to heal readily. He was in 
the prime of life, of vigorous constitution, with good habits, so 
that everytliing favored a speedy recovery. When he reached 
his rooms, after his wounds were dressed, and he had recovered 
consciousness, he was able to converse and while his wounds 
were painful and the shock to his system very noticeable, no 
permanent results were apprehended. The next day, Thursday, 
he was able to sit up and move about his apartments and he 
wished to go to the Senate, but was dissuaded from doing so. 
His condition was not materially different on Saturday and 
Sunday; but on the fourth day, Monday, unfavorable symp- 
toms appeared. That night he was feverish, unable to sleep ; 
the wounds on his head pained him severely. The glands of his 
neck became swollen and the tendons sore to the touch, with 
evidence of inflammation. The next day the large wound on 
the right side of the head wliieh had been closed with collodion 
was opened and it discharged a tablespoonful of pus. This 
afforded him relief from pain and enabled him, under the in- 
fluence of an opiate, to get some sleep. The next three days, 
his condition was critical, there being danger of blood poison 
and erysipelas. But this wound was kept open and poulticed 
and the symptoms became more favorable. The wounds on the 
left side of the head healed promptly, and to all appearances 
naturally. After the opening and poulticing those on the right 
side healed also. 

His vacant chair in the Senate troubled him. He had rep- 
resented Massachusetts there for more than five years, — years 
of excitement and hard work, with few rewards. He had been 
one of a small but diligent minority. All this time, his chair 
had never been vacant a day. He had been, in the Senate, the 
leader of the little band of anti-slavery men, in the old dark 
days. But now the prospect seemed to be changing. Slavery 
had over-reached itself ; the scenes in Kansas and in the Senate 
Chamber had brought a revulsion of feeling in the North; a 
342 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 343 

new political party was organizing whose paramount issue was 
opposition to slavery. For years Sumner had wished for such a 
party and had heen laboring with all his power to create it. 
There seemed to be a promise of its success. With all this in 
prospect it was hard for him to suffer enforced idleness. The 
sands of his term were slipping away and the time for the elec- 
tion of his successor was approaching; he wished to strike 
slavery again from his vantage ground in the Senate and show 
his fidelity and his power. His physician seeing this frame of 
mind had to caution him against its effect upon his shattered 
health. 

Southern statesmen saw the effect the assault was having 
in the l^orth and feared that Brooks had gone too far. There 
was a disposition among them to heal it over and hush it up. 
They made light of Sumner's injuries, insisted that they were 
insignificant and that there was no reason why he should not be 
in his place in the Senate. Prominent in this was Butler. In 
his reply to Sumner's speech, he referred to his absence and 
said that, judging from Dr. Boyle's statement, he could see no 
reason why he was not present in his seat, that his wounds were 
insignificant, that if he were an officer in the army and absented 
himself from duty under such circumstances he would be 
cashiered. Again Butler returned to it tauntingly, attributing 
his absence to his regard for his personal appearance, " being 
rather a handsome man," evidently hoping that such speeches 
would hasten his appearance or at least make light of his 
absence. In Sumner's condition of nervous and physical 
prostration such things only worried him and retarded his 
recovery. 

Dr. Boyle's services had proven unsatisfactory, not so much 
from a want of professional ability or even fidelity, but because 
of his apparent Southern sympathies and surroundings. He 
offered to go Brooks' bail when arrested ; he was the landlord of 
Edmundson; and he furnished a statement of Sumner's con- 
dition to be read in the Senate, which though not untruthful 
hnd a tendency to mislead because it was entrusted by the doctor 
to Butler to present. He was later the physician of Brooks. 
Just as Sumner was in his most critical condition, when his life 
for three days seemed to hang in the balance, his brother George 
arrived in Washington, and the unsatisfactory surroundings of 
Dt. Boyle becoming known to him, he discontinued his em- 
ployment and Dr. Harvey Lindsly was employed in his stead, 
and Dr. Marshal S. Perry of Boston, happening to be in the 
city, was called in consultation. Wh.en Butler made his first 
statement, that nothing prevented Sumner's presence in the 



344 ^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Senate, Dr. Lindsly, the same day, made a written certificate 
that Sumner was not able then to be in the Senate, nor would he 
be for some time to come, and that his advice to him was to go 
at once away from Washington and its excitement and seek 
quiet, in the open air. 

As the wounds on Sumner's head healed, violent neuralgic 
pains appeared periodically about the base of the brain and neck 
and the paroxysms of pain were succeeded by a feeling of heavy 
pressure, — as Sumner described it, as of fifty-six pound pres- 
sure, — upon the head and spinal cord, attended, with a feeling 
of extreme weakness and incapacity for any exertion, either 
mental or pliysical. When attempting to walk there was faint- 
ness and want of strength and his gait was uncertain and tot- 
tering like that of an old man of eighty years of age. From 
this condition there was for a long time hardly any improve- 
ment, but it was attended with alternations of hope and disap- 
pointment. For years health was to seem always just within 
his grasp and yet always eluding him. 

To keep him as quiet as possible and prevent the bad effects 
of excitement visitors were excluded, during the first week, 
from his room. After that he was permitted to see callers. His 
own party were diligent in their attentions, but the Democrats 
remained away. During the first four weeks he was in bed 
twenty-two hours each day. Somewhat improved he went, 
about the middle of June, to Silver Springs, the country home 
of F. P. Blair, in Maryland, but near Washington, where he 
remained till the fifth of July. Here he suffered a relapse and 
his life was again despaired of; some symptoms led to the 
belief that insanity or partial paralysis was the threatening 
danger. While at Silver Springs he was in Washington only 
once and then to appear before the Grand Jury under service 
of a writ of the United States Court. When he returned to 
Washington on July fifth, it was to arrange to go ISTorth, to 
escape the heat. He left there on July seventh, the same day 
that Brooks plead guilty to the indictment, going by invitation 
to Philadelphia, to spend some time at the homes of J. T. and 
W. H. Furness. Here he was under the care of Dr. Casper 
Wister. 

Dr. Wister advised him to go to the mountains where he 
would have a high altitude and a cooler atmosphere, but he 
yielded to the friendly persuasions of the family of James T. 
Furness to go with them to their cottage at Cape May. Here 
they hoped the cooling breeze and salt air would restore him 
to something of the vigor he had enjoyed at his old home by the 
sea, to which his heart still turned. But they were disap- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 345 

pointed. He did not have sufficient strength to either walk by 
the sea or enjoy bathing. He could only spend his time lying 
upon a sofa or sitting in an arbor, looking out upon the water. 
The heat during the day often became insufferable and so on 
August third he went to Cresson, Pa., in the mountains, where 
he remained till the first days of September, receiving treat- 
ment from Dr. R. M. Jackson and living as the guest of his 
family. 

Here he made some perceptible improvement. But the 
pressure about his head and spine, his extreme weakness and 
nervousness, the imperfect use of his limbs, still continued, 
with wakefulness. He often did not close his eyes in sleep 
once during the night. Some days he seemed better, others 
worse, almost as bad as ever, though he could get out of doors, 
walk a little and ride on horseback, starting very moderately 
and, as the days passed, increasing the length of his rides. But 
withal he showed an almost morbid anxiety to be well and 
back again at his work. 

This was revealed in letters that he wrote to his friends. 
But those who knew his condition urged quiet upon him and 
complete restoration, before he attempted to do any work. 

A nomination for Governor of ]\rassachusetts was talked of 
to give the people an opportunity by their votes to show their 
approval of his work in the Senate ; but he put it aside. In 
the National Republican Convention he received votes for both 
President and Vice-President. The Governor of Massachusetts 
recommended to the Legislature the payment of the expenses of 
his illness ; and a public subscription for a memorial to him, in 
approbation of his recent speech was started and a thousand 
dollars had already been subscribed before it was known to him. 
He declined and urged that whatever could be given be applied 
to promote and secure Kansas against the encroachments of 
slavery. The money subscribed was accordingly given to that 
object. He contributed one hundred dollars, of his own means, 
to the same purpose, when a public subscription was started 
and urged by the public journals in accordance with his sug- 
gestion. 

The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by two 
colleges, Yale and Amherst. In a peculiarly felicitous letter. 
President Woolsey of Yale explained that the action of his col- 
lege, in conferring this degree was dictated neither by political 
feeling nor by recent occurrences nor yet to secure popular 
favor ; for none of these things would justify literary honors ; 
but that the motive which led to this action was sincere respect 
for his literary, legal and political attainments and cultivation. 



346 I'IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and an equally sincere respect for the principles of his political 
career. And, he added, what should also have added to the 
honor, that no outside suggestion had led to this action hut that 
the thought of it had originated entirely within the Corpora- 
tion. 

Such words were a solace to Sumner in the exhausted and 
broken condition of his health. Literary honors and the ap- 
probation of literary men were always grateful to him. In 
moments of relaxation all his life, his thoughts had easily 
turned to literature. The lines of a beautiful poem, the pages 
of some old author, dead perhaps a thousand years, whose 
genius had created the thought, did not want for apprecia- 
tion from hiiu. They humanized and broadened the man and 
lifted him above tlie statesmanship, which lives only for the 
hour, into the region of things which will live for all time. 
Chase and Seward, Wilson, Wade and Giddings were his as- 
sociates in Washington ; but how easily his thoughts turned 
from them to Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell and 
Holmes at Boston. Their society furnished the pleasure and 
the inspiration of his quiet hours and their letters were the 
most carefully preserved among his papers. In his present 
condition of enforced idleness these resources were precious 
ones to him. 

His physician insisted upon as much quiet and absence of 
mental exertion as possible. But Sumner was not in a position 
to be altogether divorced from the campaign that was absorbing 
public attention. Some of the Republicans, earnest for the suc- 
cess of Fremont, not appreciating his condition, but feeling that 
he occupied the position of a martyr, and that the enthusiasm 
his presence and co-operation would awaken, would aid the 
ticket, urged him to take part. Chase advised him to accept 
the nomination for Governor of ]\rassachusetts, be elected and 
hold it till he was again elected to the Senate, when he could 
resign ; Campbell of Ohio who had been the leading spirit, in 
the House, in securing the investigation of the assault and the 
large vote for expulsion against Brooks and the censure of 
Keitt, urged him to be present at a great meeting to be held 
at Hamilton, Ohio, even if his health would not permit him to 
speak. The Republicans of Rhode Island urged him to address 
their State Convention ; and calls for him came from many 
directions in Massachusetts. But under the injunction of his 
physician, he made the one answer to all of them, that he could 
not bear even the fatigue of travelling, much less the excitement 
of the meetings, or the strain which would be required in an 
effort to speak. But his letters were read at the meetings and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 347 

published, and showed the people how unequivocally he stood 
for the ticket, and how much he wished its success. In this 
way though silent, he was able to lend his aid. These letters 
were necessarily very short, for the least exertion seemed to 
cause a reappearance of his unfavorable symptoms, pressure 
upon the brain, nervousness and extreme weakness, followed by 
sleepless nights. 

Early in September he left Cresson for Philadelphia, upon 
the whole improved, but far from being well. He remained 
during that month with his friends, W. H. and James T. Fur- 
ness, at Philadelphia and Cape May, receiving treatment again 
from Dr. Wister. He still hoped to be able to resume his duties 
at the opening of Congress in December. He was anxious to 
go to Massachusetts and vote for Fremont and the Republican 
candidates for Congress. The result on Burlingame was ex- 
pected to be close and he had been a very active and useful Free- 
Soil Member, in thorough sympathy with Sumner. And there 
was more trouble for the ticket in Boston where the Webster 
^^^ligs were still numerous and where Burlingame was a can- 
didate than in other parts of the State. Sumner insisted that 
Boston should sustain Burlingame, not merely to do him honor, 
but to save herself from dishonor. 

He had remained away from Boston, feeling that the ex- 
citement attending his return, might affect him injuriously. 
As soon as it became known that he would go home to vote, a 
committee waited on him, in Philadelphia, and urged him to 
accept a public banquet. But he did not feel equal to such an 
occasion. Under the advice of his physician, it was finally ar- 
ranged, however, that he would in the quietest way, accept a 
public reception in Boston. No organizations, civil or military 
were to be invited, as bodies, to take part, but only citizens, as 
they might of their own inclination prefer, so that the recep- 
tion would be altogether spontaneous without any effort being 
made to work up a crowd. 

Sumner reached Cambridge, Sunday morning, ISTovember 
second, two days before the election, and went directly to Long- 
fellow's home. Here he remained until Monday, when he went 
to the home of Amos A. Lawrence in Brookline, where he was 
met, after noon, by a procession of carriages containing the 
reception committee and, in an open barouche, with his physi- 
cian, Dt. Marshall S. Perry and Professor Huntington of 
Harvard, the Chairman of the Committee, they proceeded to 
Boston. As they reached the city line they were met by a 
large procession. He was presented by Professor Huntington 
and was welcomed to the city by Josiah Quincy. 



348 LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 

Sumner replied briefly, and the procession proceeded to the 
State House. The whole line of the march was decorated with 
flags and bunting and streamers. Arriving at the State House, 
they found the square in front and its steps and doors as well 
as those of the surrounding houses and even the roofs crowded 
with people. The stores had closed and the whole population 
of Boston had turned out to greet him. He was briefly pre- 
sented to the Governor, who received him in behalf of the State. 
He expressed the wish that in the quiet of his home he would 
find complete restoration. Then he counselled the people that 
Sumner was still a sick man and unable to endure excitement 
and asked that after the exercises were over, they would leave 
him to the quiet of his home. 

When the Governor had finished and the cheers had sub- 
sided, Sumner expressed his gratitude for the privilege of be- 
ing able to look on these familiar scenes, and thanked them for 
the hospitality. Here voice and strength failed him and he was 
compelled to hand his manuscript to the reporters. When he 
ceased he entered his carriage and was attended to his home. 
Here another crowd gathered to cheer him till he and his 
mother appeared at the window. The reception had been gener- 
ous. All day the weather was propitious, the crowd large 
and the enthusiasm boundless. 

To this reception was attributed the election of Burlingame, 
who succeeded by a small majority. The Republicans, while 
their National ticket was defeated, had upon the whole every 
reason for encouragement. They had carried every New Eng- 
land State and besides New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin 
and Iowa. 

The Legislature of Massachusetts was Republican and Sum- 
ner's reelection was assured. During the previous winter it 
had been in doubt. At that session, the American party con- 
trolled and they discussed the election of some one else. There 
was some anxiety felt over this and at the suggestion of friends, 
Sumner procured from the Secretary of the Senate precedents 
against the validity of such a step. They were published in the 
Boston papers. His speech on the Crime against Kansas and 
the Brooks assault followed and no more was heard of the move- 
ment, the wave of popular indorsement was so great that all 
thought of such action was abandoned. 

The new Legislature met on January seventh, 1857, and 
without waiting even for the Governor's Message, it fixed Jan- 
uary ninth as the day to elect a Senator. Promptly upon that 
day they proceeded and upon the roll being called three hun- 
dred and thirty-three members of the House voted orally for 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 349 

Sumner, while twelve votes were cast for nine other persons, 
three for Robert C. Winthrop, two for Nathaniel J. Lord, the 
seven remaining being for as many others, including one for 
Edward Everett, and one for Rufus Choate. Four days later 
the Senate balloted and every vote was for Sumner. This re- 
sult was without effort to accomplish it on his part. 

The unanimity was gratifying. The contrast between it and 
the first election was unusual. His first had been accomplished 
on the twenty-sixth ballot and on the one hundred and four- 
teenth day of the session, after a long, weary and almost des- 
perate struggle, when every effort was made to defeat him. 
Now it was substantially unanimous. His party then cast only 
about one-fifth of the vote of the State, now it cast more than 
two-thirds of it. He then went to a Senate where he could 
count only two associates. Chase and Hale, though having the 
sympathy of two others, Seward and Wade. Now his party 
numbered one-fourth of the Senate and a majority of the 
House. Then not a single state could be carried by the Free- 
Soilers ; now all New England and half the balance of the Free 
States were witJi him. No man in the country had done more 
to bring about this change. 

He accepted his new election as his first, in a letter addressed 
to the Legislature, which was read and entered at large upon 
the Journals. 

During the next four months Sumner was an invalid, at his 
home in Boston. He continued his exercise by walking and 
horseback riding. He visited friends in Boston and ' Cam- 
bridge. But most of his time was spent in the house lying 
upon a sofa. He did not go to Washington, at the opening of 
Congress. He was incapable of a protracted effort. Late 
in the winter he left for Washington so as to vote for some 
changes desired by his constituents in the tariff of 1846 and 
take the oath of office for his new term in the Senate and attend 
the inauguration of President Buchanan. He reached there on 
February twenty-fifth, in time to vote on the tariff bill, but he 
was not able to continue in his seat and the effort convinced him 
that he was totally unfit for service. He tarried, however, long 
enough to take the oath of office and attend the inauguration. 
Three days later, he sailed for Europe, on the steamer Fulton, 
bound from New York to Havre. 

His physicians, Drs. Perry and Jackson, as well as many 
friends advised this step. He was reminded by the fact that 
he had been urged to go to Washington to vote on the tariff bill 
when he was not able, that he must go farther away, out of 



350 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

sight and beyond the reach of the troubles and excitement of 
his ofifice, and obtain absolute rest. 

His voyage was without incident. He had the usual sea- 
sickness from which he always suffered, though he made several 
ocean voyages. After he arrived, he caught a severe cold ; 
" they call it la grippe here," he wrote, — a term not then but 
since well known in the United States. For two months he 
suffered from it and at times it was so severe that it aggravated 
his other troubles and for days it confined him to his rooms. 
His steamer entered the dock at Havre on the morning of 
March twenty-first; and landing about eight a. m., after a short 
walk enjoying the foreign as2)ect of the town, he started for 
Eouen at eleven in the forenoon. He reached Eouen at two 
p. M., and spent the remainder of the day enjoying the Cathe- 
dral and the streets of this old town which seemed to have a pe- 
culiar attraction for him. In the evening he attended the 
theatre. " Weary enough now," he wrote that night, " and as- 
tonished that I am able to endure the fatigue. The sea-air or 
sea-sickness or absolute separation from politics at home or all 
combined have given me much of my old strength." The next 
day being Sunday he attended mass and vespers in the Cathe- 
dral, drove among venerable streets and by the market-place 
where Joan of Arc was executed and at evening attended a cou- 
ple of hours at the opera. 

The next day, a beautiful one for the season, after a pleas- 
ant trip by rail he reached Paris, — " astonished at the magnifi- 
cence which he saw; beyond all his expectations." The nine- 
teen years that had elapsed since his first visit, had wrought 
wonderful changes in this Capital of the Beautiful Arts. Old 
buildings had been demolished, wide and spacious boulevards 
had been opened, lofty structures had been erected and trees 
planted, on either side, opening beautiful vistas from one "part 
of the city to another. The Seine winding its sinuous course 
among magnificent galleries and public buildings had been in- 
closed within l)anks of solid masonry and spanned with bridges 
of stone supported by graceful pillars and arches. The streets 
touched down, with gentle grades, to the spacious promenades 
on either bank. The river district, unlike that of most cities, 
the habitation of squalor and vice, was the most magnificent 
part of the metropolis. All over the city, available spaces at 
street intersections were made the sites for a triumphal arch or 
column, or fountain or other work of art. The venerable Cathe- 
dral, the churches and theatres, the Invalides, the tomb of 
Napoleon, never seemed to him more beautiful and more mag- 
nificent than now in the sunshine of the bright spring evening 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 35I 

after an absence of years. The sight of them seemed to awaken 
the ardor of other days and blot out years that had intervened. 

Sumner's first effort that evening was to find his old French 
teacher. He inquired for him at his former quarters; but he 
was gone. " The places that knew him once, knew him no 
more." The concierge, who had been there twelve years, had 
never even heard of him. He then sought Crawford, the artist 
with whom he had passed many happy hours at Rome and 
for whom, after his return, he had done much in procuring the 
purchase, in Boston, of his statue, representing Orpheus des- 
cending into Hades to redeem Eurydice, — w^hom he had also 
aided to secure the order for the equestrian statue of Washing- 
ton at Eichmond, Virginia. He had learned he was in Paris. 
Though he inquired at two hotels, he could not find him. 
Continuing the search he did find him a few days later, confined 
to his apartments and nearing death. His Italian servant, 
learning Sumner's former intimacy with his master disclosed 
his grief and his affection. Crawford, though unable to see 
general visitors, wdien told that Sumner was there, insisted 
upon seeing him. Sumner held him by the hand and looking 
at his altered features, marked by the foot of the destroyer, 
thought of the beautiful genius wdiom he had met nineteen 
years before, struggling for recognition on three hundred dollars 
a year, now famous in his profession, his studio filled with 
unfinished orders, passing away in the prime of years and the 
incompleteness of his work. 

Sumner visited while in Paris the places with which he 
was familiar on his former trip, — the pictures and statuary in 
the great galleries of the Louvre, the curiosities of the Musee de 
•Cluny and at the Hotel des Invalides, the Pantheon, the 
Madeleine, the Cathedral, the Law School, where he had heard 
lectures, the Sorbonne, the operas and theatres. Some Ameri- 
can friends were there, Elliot C. Cowdin, T. G. Appleton, 
Mr. and Mrs. Wm. B. Green, Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Matterson, 
Mr. and Mrs. Geo. B. Emerson. With them he dined and 
drove and attended the operas and galleries. It shows some- 
thing of the quiet of the life he was leading when on March 
twenty-sixth, after dining with Cowdin, he wrote, "the first 
time I have met company at dinner for ten months." He drove 
to Versailles to see the fountains play and again to visit the 
galleries, at the royal palace. He also drove to Saint Cloud 
and Saint Germain and to visit the porcelain potteries at 
Sevres. He went to the great cemeteries Pere la Chaise and 
Montmartre and to the royal burying-place at St. Denis. With 
Mr. and Mrs. Matterson he drove about the city and through 



352 I'lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the new park, Bois de Boulogne, " new to me," he wrote, " and 
as beautiful as new." It was a royal forest, turned over to the 
city on condition that it be improved as a park. 

His friend De Tocqueville was in Paris issuing another edi- 
tion of his book, " Democracy in America." They at once re- 
newed their former pleasant relations. They dined and visited 
together, discussed questions of government and prison dis- 
cipline. The Emperor Xapoleon Third was in power. De 
Tocqueville did not conceal his dislike for him. He was the son 
of Queen Hortense, daughter of Josephine. She had married, 
against her own wish, Louis Bonaparte, a younger brother of 
Xapoleon, afterwards King of Holland. There was talk of the 
illicit relations between Hortense and the Dutch Admiral 
Yerhuel and the Emperor was said to be the offsprin."^. Alex- 
ander Walewski, the Minister of War, was the reputed son 
of Napoleon First. De Tocqueville called it the "government 
of the bastards." Queen Hortense, a beautiful woman, en- 
dowed with many of the charming traits of her mother, had 
thrown herself open to these charges by some indiscreet con- 
duct although her subsequent life refuted them as slanders. 
After her husband had become alienated from his brother, 
Napoleon First, and been deprived of his crown, Hortense sepa- 
rated from him and retired to Switzerland, where she died 
twenty-eight years later. Her husband survived her nine 
years. Her son. Napoleon III, was only two years old at the 
time of their separation. 

Sumner himself had not been favorably impressed with 
Walewski, the Minister of War; whose reception he attended. 
He noticed his resemblance to his reputed father. Napoleon I. 
When Sumner spoke to him of the French Secretary at Wasl:^ 
ington and commended him warmly, Walewski coldly an- 
swered him that the Secretary could not wait the slow course 
of his diplomatic career but was to pass into the consular 
service whence he could not repass, because he had married 
a wife without fortune. The Secretary had married a daughter 
of Thomas H. Benton, a United States Senator from Missouri 
and the author of " Thirty Years in Congress." She was a sister 
of the wife of John C. Fremont, whose romantic marriage and 
loyal devotion to her husband had been one of the inspirations 
of the recent Presidential campaign. Fremont and his wife 
had called to pay their respects to Sumner, at the home of 
John Jay in New York, the evening before he sailed for Europe. 
It is hardly to be wondered that Sumner should point with an 
exclamation his memorandum of the degradation of the French 
Secretary, on account of such a marriage. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 353 

Sumner was intimate at the time of this visit with Michael 
Chevalier, who was sent some years before to examine the rail- 
roads and waterways of the United States. He published the 
results of his investigations upon his return to France. He was 
a writer upon economic and political questions ; and was cordial 
to Sumner from the first and showed him many attentions, en- 
tertained him and introduced him at the learned societies. 

Another friend was Alexander Vattemare, a connoisseur, 
whose specialty was the international exchange of duplicate 
books and works of art. With him Sumner repeatedly dined 
and drove. De Tocqueville asked Sumner to drive to meet the 
granddaughter of Lafayette, Mademoiselle Corcelle. With 
Vattemare he visited Lafayette's grave in Picpus Cemetery, a 
small burying-ground in the suburbs of Paris, where no 
common dust was permitted to lie, all who were buried there 
being of the ancient nobility of France. Vattemare also took 
him to a creche, where the little children of laborers were kept 
during the day. 

He met Guizot, the historian, at breakfast, by invitation of 
N". W. Senior, one of Sumner's English friends and correspond- 
ents, who was now in Paris. At this breakfast were also De 
Tocqueville and Lord Granville. Guizot afterwards expressed 
to M. Vattemare, a desire to receive Sumner and they called on 
him together. They found the historian in a small room whose 
walls were covered with books, except where there was a space 
for four pictures, Washington's and Hamilton's being two of 
them. Guizot remarked to Sumner that no other nation had 
been cradled by men of such high character as the United 
States. Sumner was impressed with the appearance of Guizot, 
whom he described as " prepossessing and his conversation 
eloquent." Guizot expressed to Sumner his sympathy for him 
and his own opposition to slavery. 

Sumner's health seemed to improve, but he was still far 
from being well. The new scenes and faces, with the excite- 
ment of travel, withdrew his mind from the excitement and 
worries of his official position and the events in which he had 
been absorbed. But a little unusual exertion brought the old 
sense of weariness and want of strength and obliged him to 
seek his bed. Time and again the diary which he kept ends the 
day with some reference to it, " home, weary, very weary," the 
opera, '' left before it was over to get home, to go to bed," or a 
dinner, " got home from as soon as he could, without going 
elsewhere." Added to this now was the cold he had contracted. 
For whole days in succession he kept his room, except when he 
felt obliged to go out to keep engagements previously made. 



354 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Some days he was not out at all. The week commencing April 
twenty-first, he spent almost entirely in the house. 

On the twenty-eighth of April, he received from the Amer- 
ican merchants residing in Paris, as the agents, on that side of 
the Atlantic, of their American houses, a letter asking him to 
accept a public dinner, as a testimonial of their admiration of 
his character and services. Two days later he declined the 
honor. The reference to himself in his answer is important as 
showing the condition of his health and his own explanation 
of his reasons for coming to Europe : 

" I am admonished," he wrote, " by the state of my health, 
which is yet far from its natural vigor, that I must not listen 
to it, except to express my gratitude. In making this excuse 
let me fortify myself by the confession that I left home mainly 
to withdraw from the excitement of political life and particu- 
larly from all public speaking, in the assurance that by such 
withdrawal, accompanied by that relaxation which is found in 
change of pursuit, my convalescence would be completed. The 
good physician under whose advice I have acted would not 
admit that by crossing the sea I had been able at once to alter 
all the conditions under which his advice was given." 

Both the letter and the answer were published in Galignani's 
Messenger, a Parisian newspaper printed in English. The 
publication called forth a letter to the newspaper from a Vir- 
ginia planter, also present in Paris, in which the writer in- 
sisted that the purpose of Sumner's trip was not health, but to 
organize in Paris and London systematic agitation against 
American slavery and characterized the action of the American 
merchants in tendering the dinner as " this pseudo-patriotic 
partisanship, this unfraternal display of their sectional colors 
in a foreign land." The letter showed the feeling with which 
Sumner was regarded by the slave-holding interest and how his 
movements were watched. It showed too something of unkind- 
ness when exhibited towards a sick man and those who were, 
in his infirmity, offering him an attention that they thought 
his services deserved. 

At the Institute, on May second, he heard Franqois Mignet, 
the historian of the French Revolution of 1789, lecture on 
Lakanal, who for twenty-two years had been a resident of the 
United States, and for a time President of the University of 
Louisiana. Mignet made some sallies in his lecture against life 
in the United States. Upon returning to his room, Sumner 
wrote Mignet, in kindly tone, taking exception to these remarks, 
insisting that the conditions he referred to only obtained in 
certain localities, and that it was not fair to condemn the whole 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 355 

country for the faults of only a part. The letter called forth a 
visit from Mignet to Sumner, two days later, in which Mignet 
expressed satisfaction at the stand Sumner took in his letter. 
A year later Mignet complimented Sumner with a ticket to his 
lecture on Schelling, the German philosopher. Their friend- 
ship continued. They talked together of history and literature. 

Alphonse De Lamartine, the poet, historian and statesman, 
was another illustrious Frenchman, whose acquaintance and 
friendship Sumner enjoyed at this time. He was a brilliant 
writer and in the Eevolution of 1848 had taken a prominent 
part and by his eloquence, on more than one occasion, had 
prevented anarchical outbreaks. He thus acquired much 
popularity. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 
Provisional Government and was nominated for the Presidency 
of the Republic he had done so much to create, but his popu- 
larity had waned ; the Republic not proving so great a boon 
as had been expected and being blamed for having precipitated 
it, he received but few votes. " Fobody," he said to Sumner, 
"could anticipate the future of France. With a people so 
changeable, nothing was certain but change." He had realized 
this in his own career. Sumner and Lamartine met several 
times in company; they dined together and exchanged calls 
and he invited Sumner to visit him at his country home. 

These I have mentioned do not comprehend all the people 
Sumner met, but they are the names that occur most frequently 
in his diary and letters; nor have I mentioned all his employ- 
ments or all the places of interest he visited, during his stay 
in Paris. My purpose has been to show how he employed his 
time, the character of his friends and the nature of his recrea- 
tions. From what has been said, it will be seen, that the tastes 
of his young manhood still prevailed. His love remained for 
pictures and statuary, for magnificent buildings, beautiful 
parks, royal palaces, places of historic interest, what was rare 
and curious in art or architecture or nature. His relish for 
travel continued. And he liked historic characters, men of 
worth and attainments. He especially enjoyed the society of 
the authors and scholars ; but it is not recorded that he more 
than once, while in Paris, entered a legislative hall, and only 
once a court-room, and then with the expectation of hearing 
Mairie, a member of the Provisional Government of the 
Republic, try a case. But the suit was continued. All in all, 
it was a pleasant recreation, mingling rest and improvement, 
with the hope of health, by thus withdrawing the mind from 
its accustomed labor and excitements. 

He drove with the Appletons to St. Cloud where they dined 



356 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

in the open air, while listening to the music of a band, May 23. 
That evening he packed his trunk and the next day he left 
Paris for a tour of the provinces, hoping that a change might 
bring improvement. He wished to see France elsewhere than 
at Paris, where he had been for two months. He reached 
Orleans on his journey, about noon of a beautiful day after a 
ride through a charming country. Here he spent the after- 
noon, visited the chateau where Bolingbroke lived during his 
exile from England, walked through some of the old streets 
and saw the house of the great French jurist Pothier and his 
monument at the Cathedral. In the evening he went on by 
rail to Blois, where lie rambled about, till wearied. After- 
wards he attended a concert. The next morning he was awak- 
ened early by the sunlight streaming into his room and rising, 
he dressed and from his window looked out upon the smooth- 
gliding waters of the Loire and the sleepy canal. By seven he 
started in a carriage to visit the castles at Chambord, at Am- 
boise and at Chenonceaux, three of the most famous castles in 
France. He returned to Amboise for dinner and then went by 
rail to Tours. 

The next day he went to its museum, its library, its Cathedral 
and rambled about its old streets. In the neighborhood he also 
visited the Agricultural and Penitentiary Colony at Mettray. 
It was tlie reform school for boys, upon the family system, 
founded in 1840 by Frederic Augusta Demetz, whose acquaint- 
ance at Paris, Sumner had made in 1838. He was then a 
Judge of the Royal Court of Paris, but resigned that posi- 
tion to give his life to this work. The institution he founded 
and conducted has been a model for many in Europe and Amer- 
ica. He continued at the head of it from its foundation in 
1840 until his death in 1873 and when he died, he directed 
that his heart should be buried there, though his body was 
buried at Dourdan. Sumner watched the boys in confinement, 
running about in their wooden shoes and was impressed with 
the earnestness with which Demetz defended their use, saying 
that he wore them himself about the yard in winter, that they 
protected his feet against dampness better than rubber ones. 

Early the next morning he left Tours for Nantes by rail, 
stopping at Angers to visit its museum and library and chateau, 
seeing en route the old castle of Giles de Rais, a powerful 
Baron, infamous for the number of his wives and his de- 
baucheries, believing in sorcery and ruining young persons 
of both sexes that he might attach them to himself; after- 
wards himself burned to death for his crimes. On hia life, 
hangs the story of Blue Beard. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 357 

From ISTantes, Sumner returned to Tours and went thence 
by way of Poitiers and Angouleme to Bordeaux, stopping to 
visit these antiquated towns and the romantic castles on his 
road, travelling much by carriage and meeting the ordinary 
experiences of a traveller. At Dax he met a Frenchman at 
breakfast who insisted upon knowing his age and his business. 
At Pan he enjoyed the Pyrenees, capped with snow on June 
third. He travelled thence to Eaux Bonnes, a fashionable re- 
sort, on the outside of a diligence, the road constantly ascend- 
ing a mountain pass, by the side of a rushing stream, his 
companion a priest. Arrived there he tasted the waters and 
took the baths, and the next day mounted on horseback, with 
a guide also on horseback, his trunk strapped on the back 
of another horse led by a man on foot, he was off by six in 
the morning over the mountains to Argelles where he ar- 
rived by five p. m., " weary, very weary," and gave up going 
farther to rest at the pleasant inn. But he passed a night 
sleepless from fatigue and was troubled to find how little he 
could bear now, compared with that insensibility to fatigue, 
which he had once enjoyed. He was obliged to give up trav- 
elling by horseback and from Argelles to Toulouse he went by 
carriage or coach. 

From Toulouse he went to Carcassonne, the finest walled 
town in France. A day he spent in Montpellier, then a day in 
Dijon and another at Fontainebleau. Here he went through the 
royal palace, a favorite residence of Napoleon, in whose chapel 
was pronounced the decree of divorce from Josephine ; in whose 
court, he kissed the French eagle and bade farewell to his Old 
Guard, on his banishment to Elba; and within whose walls he 
signed his abdication after the defeat at Waterloo, when his 
career ended and he left France forever for St. Helena. Here 
too was signed the revocation of the Edict of N'antes by which 
Henry IV had granted religious toleration to the French Prot- 
estants. Sumner drove through the forest containing thirty- 
five hundred acres belonging to the palace and the same day he 
rode on to Paris, thirty-two miles and was back in his old lodg- 
ings at Rue de la Paix, after an absence of eighteen days. 

He remained five days in Paris and, on June 16, left for 
England. He reached London by ten p. m. and the next day, 
the first friend he met was Joseph Parkes, author of a history 
of the Court of Chancery, now taxing master of the Court of 
Exchequer. They dined together ; and the next day he saw 
Monckton Milnes, M. P., afterwards Lord Houghton, and so 
for seven weeks he spent his time in London, renewing old 
friendships. 



358 J^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

The nineteen years that had passed since his first visit had 
wrought many changes. He was then a young man of promise, 
filled with high hopes,, abounding in health and an enthusiastic 
student. He was introduced by Judge Story and other friends 
to the best circles of English society and his merits had jus- 
tified what they had said of him. But it was character only he 
had to offer. He brought nothing of achievement. Now he 
came a man of ripe judgment, bringing sheaves gathered in 
the rough struggle of the years. The promise of the first visit 
had become the realization of the next. He was now one of the 
historic men of his country. But time had left its marks upon 
him. He was broken in health, unable to work, he felt like an 
old man worn out and in search of health. Instead of delight- 
ing in exertion and incapable of fatigue, he faltered in his steps 
and in the midst of the most ordinary effort, was often obliged 
to seek his bed and rest. His condition was a source of regret 
to friends who remembered him as he was before. 

On the other hand he saw the change these years had wrought 
in his friends. Monckton Milnes was "much altered since he 
knew him." He passed some time with Lord Brougham, " very 
kind but old." Lord Macaulay was " so altered he did not know 
him." His old friend Robert M. Eolfe, who was then Solicitor- 
General, had grown gracefully gray and was now Baron Cran- 
worth and the Lord Chancellor of England. He dined with 
him again and there met the grand-daughter of Lord Byron. 
But Mrs. Norton, he wrote, was " as beautiful as ever." 

It would be unprofitable to follow him in the round of social 
entertainments. His former friends were glad to see him and 
it seemed like an awakening of pleasant memories for them to 
pass the hours together. Older grown, with less of hope and 
more of care and of the stern realities of life upon them, it was 
a relief to recall the earlier days. He made some new friends, 
who were equally kind, among them William E. Gladstone and 
John Bright and the Duke of Westminster and Wilberforce, 
the Bishop of Oxford, by all of whom he was entertained. 

The extent of his entertainment during the seven weeks in 
London may be seen from an enumeration of some of the places 
he went and the persons he met. He breakfasted with Senior, 
where he met Lords Glenelg and Hatherton, Earl Fortescue, 
M. de Lesseps and Merimee, the novelist and historian. He 
declined an invitation to stay at Stafford House, preferring 
the greater freedom of quarters of his own. The Duchess of 
Sutherland took him to the Crystal Palace. He breakfasted 
with the Duke of Argyle and met there Lord Aberdeen. He 
dined with Lord Granville and met Lord Clarendon. He at- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 359 

tended a great party at Lansdowne House and was again at 
Senior's with Lord and Lady Monteagle and Reeve, the editor 
of the Edinburgli lieview and translator of De Tocqueville's 
" Democracy in America ". He breakfasted at Lansdowne 
House, where he was seated next to Lord John Eussell, the head 
of the British Foreign Office during our Civil War. He dined 
with -Lord Hatherton, where were the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Lord Lansdowne and the Duke and Duchess of Argyle. He 
breakfasted with Lord Hatherton with Tocqueville, Senior and 
Lord Aberdeen. He was the guest at dinner of the Benchers of 
the Inner Temple. He lunched at Argyle Lodge and after it 
the Duke and Duchess took him to Professor Owen, the 
naturalist, in Richmond Park. He took dinner with Mr. 
Ellice, M. P., where he met Mr. Dallas, the ITnited States 
Minister, and his family. He lunched at Stafford House, 
where he met Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity. He dined with 
Mr. Sterling, where were Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Ellice, Lady 
Molesworth and Mrs. Norton. He declined an invitation to 
dine with the Law Amendment Society of Greenwich, with 
Lord Brougham in the chair. He passed a Sunday at Cliveden, 
the villa of the Ducliess of Sutherland, with the Bishop of 
Oxford, Gladstone, Labouchere, afterAvards Lord Taunton, and 
wife and the Duke and Duchess of Argyle. Lady Labouchere 
took Sumner and Gladstone to her place. Stoke, where he 
visited tlie grave of Gray, the poet, and the manor house where 
Sir Edward Coke died. He walked with Gladstone two miles 
to the railroad and enjoyed his conversation. He dined with 
Lord Brougliam and met Lord Chancellor Cranworth, Lord 
Chief Justice Campbell, Lord Clanricarde, Lord Shaftesbury, 
Lord Aberdeen, Lord Brougham, Lord Glenelg, Duke of Wel- 
lington, the Bishop of Oxford, Sir John Stevens and Mr. 
Parks. He breakfasted at Henry Reeves, with the Due de Ne- 
mours, Due d'Aumale, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord 
Stanley, Lord Hatherton. He dined with Mr. Parkes, where he 
met Jared Sparks, the historian, and Charlotte Cushman, the 
actress. He was made an honorary member by the Reform and 
Travellers' Clubs. He dined at Lord Belper's with Lord Mac- 
aulay. At Dr. Lushington's seat he met Lady Trevelyan, " a 
most agreeable sister of Macaulay." He dined with Lord 
Wensleydale, where were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Lynd- 
hurst and the Argyles. Lady ]\rary Fox took him to Holland 
House, where there was a beautiful open air festival. He 
attended a lunch at Grosvenor House, where the company 
assembled in the magnificent gallery. On a Sunday, he went 
to Richmond, to lunch with Lord John Russell, where in his 



360 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

pleasant grounds he met other distinguished people. He 
visited the Archbishop of Canterbury at Addington and spent 
an afternoon with him. 

And so the list runs on. These are not all but they are suffi- 
cient to show the attention Sumner received and the wonderful 
number of his friendships among the really great people of 
England. His English acquaintance was always a source of 
pride to him. The doors of such houses in every country open 
slowly to strangers and it is evidence of his worth that he was 
so generally and heartily received. 

The attentions paid him were a tax upon his strength. 
They withdrew his thoughts from his condition and from 
things at home, and so far their eflfect was beneficial ; but the 
continual round of excitement was too great. He found him- 
self obliged to decline invitations he would have been glad to 
accept and always to observe moderation in his exertions. 
But he afterwards realized that he had gone too far. 

Aside from these social engagements he spent the time in 
London quietly. He did not undertake general sight-seeing. 
He visited the Tower, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum 
and the picture galleries, but this was the extent of it. His 
interest was rather in men. He attended sessions in the House 
of Commons and the House of Lords and listened to speeches 
of the members. He was more in their society and less in the 
society of members of the bar, than in 1838. His career in the 
Senate accounted for this; his fame had preceded him among 
Members of Parliament and they sought his acquaintance. 

He left London on August fifth, for the home of De Tocque- 
ville, an interesting chateau three or four centuries old, near 
Cherbourg, where his friend made him comfortable, telling 
him it was not necessary to wear a white cravat at dinner, as the 
country life of France was less formal than in England, etc. 
The next morning he spent walking over De Tocqueville's 
private grounds. In the afternoon they drove together to the 
village and chateau of St. Pierre, situated in a beautiful park, 
the ancestral home of the Abbe St. Pierre, well known for his 
story of " Paul and Virginia." They were home to dinner, by 
seven o'clock, and passed the evening watching the ladies play 
billiards. The day following, the British consul at Cherbourg, 
came over with his two daughters, to pass the day and De 
Tocqueville drove the party to the village of Barfleur and to 
the surrounding heights, where they could have good views of 
the country. The excursion was pleasant, but was interrupted 
by a shower, which caught and wet the whole party. On the 
fourteenth De Tocqueville drove Sumner to Cherbourg where 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 3g]^ 

they were taken to visit the breakwaters and the docks and the 
harbor, constructed at great cost by Napoleon I, with navy 
yards and dry-docks and imjjregnable fortifications. They 
dined with the British consul, who invited some friends to 
meet them. In the evening, after a pleasant stay of tliree days, 
he returned through Bayeux and Caen, to Paris, where he 
arrived on the sixteenth of August. 

lie found the family of Hamilton Fish had just arrived 
from New York, and visited them in the evening and dined 
with them the next day. But on August nineteenth, he left 
Paris again for a trip to Turin in Italy. Here he turned 
back, crossing the Alps again at Great St. Bernard, spending 
a night at the hospice with the monks and their dogs on the 
mountains, tarrying at Geneva and Lausanne and Heidelberg, 
and descending the Rhine, reached London September nine- 
teenth. His purpose was to pay some visits he had promised 
to make in the North, before his return to America. 

_ The evening of his arrival in London, he went to Walton, 
eighteen miles away, to visit Kussell Sturges. The next day 
he returned to the city and went to spend a night with the 
Lord Chancellor, Cranworth, at his country place, Holwood, 
in Kent, once the home of William Pitt. Here he found his 
old friend of nineteen years before, Henry Hall am, the his- 
torian. He spent part of the next day with Hallam and found 
time was making sad inroads upon him. He was very weak, 
unable to walk. It was to be their last meeting. 

Sumner went from London northward, stopping at Man- 
chester to see an exposition then in progress, to which he was 
admitted to a private view on Sunday. 

He left Manchester September twenty-ninth to visit Harriet 
Martineau, at Ambleside, in the Lake region. Her house was 
an ivy-clad cottage, called The Knoll, situated at the edge of 
the village and near the head of Windermere, the largest and 
most picturesque of the succession of beautiful lakes, in which 
the region abounds. The scenery was rugged and wooded, 
interlaced with deep ravines, leading down streams of spark- 
ling water over beautiful falls and dancing eddies into the lake. 
Clusters of little islands rose out of the smooth surface of the 
lake, showing with their cottages, pretty glimpses of shade and 
lawn. The region was sprinkled with homes of people, who 
loving nature had added their work and frequently the charm 
of their names to her profusion to make the region still more 
attractive. 

Miss Martineau he had known since 1835. They met when 
she was travelling in the United States, preparatory to writing 



362 1^1 PE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

her " Society in America ". She was then attracted to the sub- 
ject of slavery and had become an abolitionist and continued 
iier interest in the subject till it finally prevailed. She did not 
hesitate to lend the aid of her pen to the cause, even to the prej- 
udice of her popularity as an author. Sumner, at the time he 
first made her acquaintance, had not shown an unusual in- 
terest in the subject, though she noted him as strongly dis- 
approving the conduct of the pro-slavery mobs and resolved to 
set his face against such demonstrations. After the commence- 
ment of his career she followed him with sympathetic inter- 
est and when they met in London, he promised to visit her at 
The Knoll. He was now redeeming this promise. 

He spent a day and evening there, discussing old friends 
and anti-slavery affairs in America. He went from there to 
Westhoe Hall, at South Shields to visit Robert Ingham, stop- 
ping by the way for a couple of hours at Brougham Hall, where 
lie had visited in 1838, and where he was pressed to stay longer 
now but declined, promising to stop, however, on his return. 
Eobert Ingham who for twenty-five years represented South 
Shields in Parliament, after being educated at Oxford and 
called to the bar, though not brilliant, either in his profession 
or in Parliament, was a man of great worth and kindness of 
heart. When he retired from Parliament, his friends by pub- 
lic subscription built an infirmary as a fitting testimonial to 
his character. Sumner wrote him that " such a monument 
was better than a statue." Though Sumner's senior in years, 
a warm friendship had grown up between them on his former 
trip and they had since corresponded. The similarity of their 
employments and their tastes drew them together, Sumner 
appreciating Ingham's worth and Ingham sympathizing en- 
tirely with Sumner's work for Abolition. Sumner arrived at 
Westhoe Hall Friday evening and remained until Monday. 
The only entry he made in his diary, the day after his arrival 
is: "Rambled about hoping to recognize old spots, which I 
had known nineteen years ago ; company to dinner." 

From Westhoe Hall, Sumner went for a day with Lord Chief 
Justice Campbell. When Sumner knew him in 1838 he was the 
Attorney-General ; and later he was Lord Chancellor. He is 
well known for his Lives of the Chief Justices and the Lord 
Chancellors. Sumner spent the day talking and walking with 
him in his grounds and returned to Edinburgh in the evening. 

He left Edinburgh, October eighth, to visit Edward Ellice 
who represented Coventry in Parliament for more than forty 
years and was at one time Secretary of War and, at another. 
Joint Secretary of the Treasury. Sumner had also met him on 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 3G3 

his former trip. He was now at Glenquoich, a distant retreat 
in the midst of the HigMand lakes and mountains. He went 
by way of Rothesay and the Crinan and Caledonian Canals 
to the month of Glengarry and then by gig and dog-cart to the 
retreat of his host. He remained for two days in this romantic 
region. 

" I am here/' he wrote, " farther north then lona and Staffa, 
beyond Morven and near the Isle of Skye, where Flora Mac- 
donald sheltered Charles Edward. There is no family living 
within forty or fifty niiles of the friend whose guest I now am, 
and whose estate stretches for miles and miles. In front of the 
window at which I write are the hills of the immense posses- 
sions of Lochiel. I am away from xA.merican papers and with- 
out letters." 

On October twelfth, early in the morning he set out for Dun- 
robin Castle, the seat of the Duke of Sutherland. He reached 
the Caledonian Canal by dogcart, at Fort Augustus. Thence 
the steamer carried him through the canal to Inverness, be- 
fore dark. After dinner and a walk about the streets of the old 
capital of the Highlands, he threw himself on a bed, at the 
inn and rested till half-past eleven o'clock, when he took the 
mail coach for an all-night ride. At eight o'clock the next 
morning he reached Golspie, the nearest town to Dunrobin, 
where he found a carriage from the Castle awaiting his arrival. 
A farther ride of a mile brought him to his destination. He 
immediately went to bed to recover his lost sleep and did not 
appear till lunch at two o'clock. After lunch they walked in 
the grounds and at the Duchess's request he planted a tree, a 
Mount Atlas cedar. She was the sister of Lord Morpeth and 
was Smnner's correspondent till her death in 186S. Sumner 
had met her in 1838 and was greatly impressed with her beauty 
and her religious character. " She is," he wrote Judge Story, 
'' wonderfully beautiful ; I think even more so than Mrs. Nor- 
ton." She it was who brought Sumner and Gladstone together 
and paved a way for the friendship between them. 

Dunrobin Castle is an ancient seat, some parts of it having 
been built as a fortress as early as 1097 and the estate with it 
comprises many acres. While Sumner w\is there. Lords Blan- 
tyre, Grosvenor, Bagot and Stafford, with their wives, were also 
guests at the Castle. They had dinner at eight o'clock and 
afterwards, with the children, they engaged in a game of post, 
a kind of blind man's buff. The next day they breakfasted at 
ten and then rambled about the grounds. The Duke and some 
of the family were going to Inverness and they all went aboard 
the yacht to see them off; and afterward the Duchess with 



364 I^^PE OF CHARLES SVMNER 

four horses and an outrider drove them up the mountain to 
enjoy the splendid atmosphere and the beautiful scenery. The 
next morning there were prayers by the Duchess. 

The custom of religious worship, one of the most beautiful 
of the country, Sumner mentioned as commonly observed in 
the great houses where he visited, daily prayers in the morn- 
ing attended by .all the members of the great establishment, 
from the highest to the lowest. They met in the great hall or 
chapel and with bowed heads, in a simple service, led by the 
head of the house or the lady, they acknowledged their depend- 
ence upon God and asked His guidance and His blessing. It 
was a sincere acknowledgment and a touching admission by 
those in high places, the heads of these houses, of their de- 
pendence upon another and a Higher Being, whose protection 
was over all. By example, it taught those under them, humility 
and obedience. It seemed nothing contributed more to the 
spirit of contentment and happiness and love of order 
so marked in the atmosphere of these great establishments, 
than this simple and heartfelt exercise of religion. 

On leaving the Duchess drove Sumner four miles to his 
steamer; and he went on by way of Burghhead, Elgin, Keith 
and Old Meldrum to Haddo House, the seat of the Earl of Aber- 
deen. The Queen had only left her Highland home, Balmoral 
Castle, nearby, the day before. The family were alone and 
Sumner spent the next day, Saturday, with the Earl, viewing 
his grounds and in a visit to Balmoral Castle. Sunday they 
went to the kirk, two miles away, in the morning, and heard 
prayers and a Presbyterian sermon ; and he spent the remainder 
of the day with the Earl quietly walking and talking. 

He left Haddo House Monday morning and the same day 
reached Sir William Stirling's place at Keir, for dinner and " a 
pleasant evening." Wednesday morning, Sumner left Keir 
by the post for Callander and passing through the Trossachs, 
he crossed Loch Katrine in an open boat and, in this country 
of alternate rain and sunshine, he recorded that he encountered 
two severe rain squalls, in the short passage of ten miles. 

The author remembers retracing with his wife the route fol- 
lowed by Sumner. They fell in with three bright and interest- 
ing Scottish girls as fellow travellers, on the little steamer, on 
Loch Lomond. They were each armed with a heavy plaid, a 
stout staff and strong shoes, and were bound on an excursion 
through Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine and to the top of Ben 
Venue, and then back to Loch Lomond, all the way on foot, 
except where the boats sailed. At Inversnaid, where the boat 
was left, waiting to ride by coach to Loch Katrine, a distance 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 365 

of six miles, they by walking got the start, but were soon over- 
taken, in the midst of one of these violent squalls of rain, trudg- 
ing along at the side of the stone road, under their heavy plaids, 
laughing at the rain. We saw them again at Stronachlacher 
pier on Loch Katrine, none the worse of their walk or their 
wetting, good-humoredly laughing at the '" leaky weather " of 
their country, but full of hearty love for its always fresh and 
romantic scenery. 

It is quite natural for the Scots to love their island home for 
few countries have more picturesque and enchanting scenes. 
The Lochs, Lomond and Katrine, are beautiful sheets of clear 
water, embedded among hills and mountains and studded with 
romantic islands covered with foliage which reaches down to the 
water's edge. These mountains are not towering like the Alps, 
for the highest, Ben Lomond, is little more than three thousand 
feet in height; but they are covered with a dense growth of 
small timber; kept green by constant showers and mists, and 
rise roll above roll in all sorts of fantastic shapes, producing 
a charming effect to the eye. There are romantic glens and 
waterfalls and prim little villages, which dot the sides of the 
lakes and frowning headlands and ivy grown walls, which 
call to recollection scenes of dim days that are past. It is a 
region of romance, sprinkled over with all sorts of interesting 
legends. Sumner easily loitered among such scenes. 

After passing through Loch Katrine, he drove to Inversnaid 
on Loch Lomond and then went down the lake to Tarbert, 
then by post through Glencoe to Inverary Castle, the seat of 
the Duke of Argyll, the head of the Scottish family of Camp- 
bell, where he arrived on the evening of October twenty-first. 
The Duke and Duchess were expecting him. She was the 
daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland whom Sumner had just 
visited at Dunrobin Castle and a niece of his friend, formerly 
Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle, whom he was soon to visit. 
They were all Sumner's friends and correspondents and con- 
tinued so until they were separated by death. They were ar- 
dently anti-slavery in sentiment and their letters to Sumner 
were frequent and full of encouragement. During the Civil 
War, the Duke of Argyll, whom he was now visiting, was a 
member of the British Government and the only one who could 
be said to be entirely in sympathy with the North. 

Sumner remained at Inverary Castle two days. The first 
was spent in driving with the Duke and Duchess through the 
forests and plantations of Inverar}^ ; the second he planted, at 
their request two trees, an oak and a pine. Both grew, and 
years afterwards were mentioned in their correspondence, as 



366 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

pleasant reminders of his visit. He went with the family, to 
the other side of Loch Fyne, on which the Castle is situated, 
to visit the children of the Duke and Duchess, who happened 
to be from home. The third day he bade them good-bye and 
went on to Glasgow. 

From Glasgow he went to Penrith to visit Lord Brougham. 
His carriage was waiting for him, at the station and in it he 
reached Brougham Hall early in the afternoon. After lunch, 
he and Lord Brougham, walked together, and later Lady 
Brougham took him to drive through Lowther Park. Several 
guests were present for dinner and spent the evening. Sumner 
was interested in a death mask of Pitt, which Lord Brougliam 
had among his art treasures. He presented Sumner with a 
colored print of Edmund Burke as a youth, a copy of a picture 
by Reynolds, which Sumner retained till his death and then be- 
queathed to the Boston Art Museum. 

He left Brougham Hall the next morning to visit W. E. Fos- 
ter, M. P., near Leeds. He and John Bright and Eichard Cob- 
den were the three members of the House of Commons who 
stood by the Korth, in the American Civil War. They had al- 
ready been watching events in the United States with inter- 
est. Sumner reached Wharfside, the home of Foster in the 
afternoon. Edward Baines of the Leeds Mercury was invited 
to dine with him and several guests were present at breakfast 
the next morning. At eleven o'clock, he left Wharfside. 

He went to Castle Howard, near Malton, the seat of the 
Earl of Carlisle, stopping on the way at York long enough 
to see its famous Minster. 

Sumner spent three days at Castle Howard. Only the mem- 
bers of the Earl's family were there, his mother now disabled 
by paralysis and near her death, his sister Lady Caroline Las- 
celles, and her three daughters all at the time unmarried, and 
Lady Elizabeth Grey, another sister, and her husband Rev. 
Francis Grey. The days were all pretty much the same. Sum- 
ner and the Earl were warm friends ; neither had married and 
so the cares of a family had never separated them. The long 
years since they met had been covered by a frequent corre- 
spondence and each had followed the career of the other, so 
that now they had many things to talk over. And it was in 
walking and talking and rambling about the Castle, viewing the 
pictures together that the time was spent. The Castle had a 
celebrated collection of paintings by Titian, Rubens, Reynolds 
and other masters, sculptures, bronzes, tapestries and old glass 
and a beautiful park. At the Earl's request Sumner, soon after 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 367 

this, sent him a crayon portrait of himself by William W. 
Story which still hangs in the Castle. 

Morpeth wrote of their intimacy : " In our past hours of 
friendly intercourse, in our frequent walks by the sparkling 
estuary of Boston, or upon the sunny brow of Bunker Hill, how 
little did I, how little did he, I feel well assured, dream of 
such an opening upon his quiet and unostentatious career ! " 
And Sumner left a record of their friendship, when he wrote 
his brother, Charles Howard, after the Earl's death : " Let me 
confess that from the beginning I felt for him a peculiar friend- 
ship, and he seemed to feel the same for me. While I was an 
invalid his sympathy was complete and constant. I cannot for- 
get his letters then. For more than a quarter of a century this 
friendship has been to me a treasure and a solace. It is now 
gone; and England with which he was so much associated in 
my mind, seems to me less England than before." 

Sumner left Castle Howard on the morning of October thirty- 
first, Lord Carlisle rising early to see him off and his brother- 
in-lav/ Mr. Grey accompanying him as far as Manchester. He 
crossed the country by Crewe to Stafford, where he took a fly 
and drove six miles to Lord Ilatherton's seat, Teddesley Hall. 
Tlie next day, Sunday, they drove to service in the parish church 
at Penkridge; and in the afternoon he and Lord Hatherton 
walked to see his farm, his Hereford cattle and his draining. 
After dinner, at the close of the evening, all the domestics, 
twenty-five or thirty in number, with the family, assembled in 
the dining-room and Lady Hatherton read prayers and a short 
sermon. 

]\Ionday came, a rainy, dismal second of N"ovember, when all 
parties were glad to keep themselves housed closely in from 
the weather. How the cold wet day, late in autumn, with 
falling leaves and seared meadows and other evidence of ap- 
proaching winter seemed to chill every living thing about the 
great house and make all cling to shelter with hearty, though 
secret thanksgiving for such a protection from the storm ! All 
forenoon they remained close indoors at Teddesley Hall; but 
in the afternoon, the clouds broke and Sumner, with Lady 
Hatherton and a company of others went to Stafford where, 
following his interest in prison discipline they visited the jail, 
kept under the direction of a governor, who was formerly a 
major in the army. The governor had besides the recommenda- 
tion, more appreciated in England than America, of belonging 
to an old family. They also visited the house where Isaac Wal- 
ton was born. Though dead two hundred years the abounding 
grace and simplicity of his " Compleat Angler," dear to lover^ 



368 J^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

of quiet life, seemed still to cast a spell around the quaint and 
quiet town. After strolling about the streets they returned to 
the Hall and in the evening, the governor of the jail with a 
Captain Mackinnon, an acquaintance of Sumner, came in for 
dinner. 

The next day he left Stafford to spend an evening with 
John Bright at Landudno, near Conway, in Wales. He 
reached Landudno in the evening, just at dark, and in the rain. 
Bright had engaged rooms for him at the hotel, as his guest 
and they spent the evening till eleven o'clock talking of health 
and politics. The next morning was an enjoyable one spent 
with Bright. From the acquaintance, made by Sumner with 
Bright while on this European trip, sprung a lifetime friend- 
ship. They became correspondents and so continued till Sum- 
ner's death. The intimacy was of importance to Sumner's 
country. Bright was one of the great men of his generation 
and a powerful orator. Being a leader in Parliament, the con- 
stant interchange of letters between himself and Sumner, who 
was for many years the chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations and one of the greatest orators of the Senate, aided 
mightily to keep the hearts of the two great English-speaking 
nations right towards each other. 

From Bright, Sumner went to visit the other great Com- 
moner, William E. Gladstone, at Hawarden, near Chester. He 
arrived on the afternoon of November fourth. The thick 
misty weather, so common in England during this season of the 
year and which he had been encountering for some days, still 
continued. But notwithstanding, Gladstone took him over his 
grounds and to show him the ruin of the old Castle. Gladstone 
was at the time engaged on some volumes on Homer and the 
conversation turning upon that subject they found themselves 
in a field congenial Isy early studies to both. Sumner had spent 
many years in the atmosphere of Harvard ; while Gladstone 
had attained an unusual distinction at Oxford and for a num- 
ber of years represented her in Parliament. Sumner found in 
him the same eloquent conversation which he had before ad- 
mired. Similarity of tastes and of employment furnished them 
many topics of common interest and the hours passed easily 
between them. The next morning, the rain still continuing, 
Gladstone took him to drive through the Park. 

Sumner found Chester one of the most interesting cities 
in England ; many of its buildings very old and in the restora- 
tions made great care was taken to preserve their ancient ap- 
pearance so that it presented the appearance of a well-kept city 
of the Middle Ages. He visited the Cathedral dating from 1200 



vl 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 369 

and walked along the top of the city wall which afforded the 
best means of obtaining a general view of the city. It lies 
at the mouth of the river Dee, a small stream not sufficiently 
large for ocean-going vessels yet with small crafts furnishing 
an infinite amount of pleasure to its people. In numbers, in 
pleasant weather, they gathered along its banks, in the shade of 
" The Grove." Its old mill lazily ground away by the river 
side, as perhaps it had done for centuries. Here and there in 
its neighborhood where its wheels churned the water into foam 
there was seated some ancient angler intent upon his sport, 
just as perhaps there had been for a thousand years or more of 
the history of the quaint old town. It was altogether one of the 
attractive scenes of the home-life of " Merry England." 

At Chester Sumner drove to Eaton Hall, the seat of the 
Marquis of Westminster, where he had been invited to visit. 
He arrived before lunch. The Marchioness met him, on his 
arrival, and showed him through the house, and hospitably took 
him to his room. It was again drizzling rain, but, not- 
withstanding, Sumner visited the gardens and the stables ; for 
aside from the beauty of its architecture the palace was justly 
famed for its flowers and its horses. At dinner were several 
persons of distinction, besides the daughters of his host, gentle, 
well-educated young ladies, sensible and unspoiled by their 
position. 

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when he reached the 
Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool where he found Eichard Rathbone 
had been waiting for him several hours. Sumner's oration on 
the " True Grandeur of Nations " had fallen into his hands and 
he had it reprinted and circulated, by the Peace Society of 
Liverpool. Some correspondence and an acquaintance between 
them followed. He took Sumner to see the city and afterwards 
to his home for dinner, where Sumner remained for the night. 
At eleven the next morning, Mr. Rathbone drove him to his 
hotel and then to the pier, and at three p, m. of November 
seventh, Saturday, he sailed for home. 

The voyage was not a rough one, the first days were even 
pleasant ; but Sumner suffered, as ever, from sea-sickness, so 
that November seventeenth, ten days after starting, when they 
touched at Halifax, he wrote that he had not taken a single 
meal at the table and that much of his time had been passed in 
his stateroom. At Halifax he went ashore for a stroll, but he 
soon returned to the ship. They set sail again November 
eighteenth and, by four p. m. of November nineteenth, reached 
the wharf, " the day pleasant, the harbor of Boston beautiful," 
he wrote. And so to the wanderer, in search of health, after 



370 I^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ei^ht months of absence, looking forward eagerly to the re- 
sumption of his duties, must have seemed a port even less beau- 
tiful than Boston. 

Sumner was met on his arrival at the pier in Boston by his 
colleague Henry Wilson, with N". P. Banks, who had recently 
been elected Governor of Massachusetts. They drove him in 
their carriage to his mother's home, where a crowd had gathered 
in the street, to see him. In answer to their call, he spoke a 
few words of thanks, before entering the house. The next 
evening he attended a lecture by Banks to the Mechanics' Ap- 
prentice Association, where his appearance occasioned loud 
applause, which continued until he was obliged to speak a few 
words to the audience. Soon after, when he attended the 
inauguration of the Governor, he was welcomed by an even 
greater outburst. He was in his seat in Washington, when 
Congress opened in December, where his Free-Soil associates 
were glad to welcome him ; but the pro-slavery members held 
aloof. His presence was everywhere a happy omen to the 
friends of Freedom. To all inquiries about his health, he 
answered encouragingly, but his physicians still forbade him 
taking an active part in the debates. 

Congress this session was again occupied with the debate on 
Kansas. Her fraudulent Legislature, meeting at Lecompton, 
had drafted a constitution, containing a clause legalizing Slav- 
ery and it also had in it other provisions oppressive to the 
Free State men. The people were not given an opportunity 
to vote for the constitution or against the constitution. But if 
they voted at all, they must vote for the constitution. Their 
only privilege was to vote for the constitution ivWi slavery, or 
for the constitution without slavery. But if they voted it 
without slavery, they voted it with all the other oppressive 
provisions remaining. The Free State people naturally refused 
to go near the trap that was thus laid for them and so, when 
thfe election came, they declined to vote and the constitution 
carried by a large majority, with slavery. President Buchanan 
immediately on the opening of the session, sent a message to 
Congress, urging the admission of the State with the Lecomp- 
ton constitution. 

Douglas was a candidate for re-election to the Senate, for 
his term was just expiring. Seeing that to support such a 
bill as proposed would be fatal to his prospect of re-election, he 
promptly opposed it with all the force of his forceful nature. 
He cared not, he declared, whether the Constitution be voted 
,iip or voted down, but he insisted the people of Kansas should 
be allowed to vote for or against it. It was defeated in the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 37I 

Senate, where the Democrats were largely in the majority; 
but in the House the result promised to be close. Wm. H, 
English proposed an amendment, giving the people of the Ter- 
ritory a right to vote for or against the constitution, but 
coupling with it a large grant of land if adopted and postpon- 
ing state-hood if rejected, thus holding up to the people of 
Kansas a bribe to induce them to vote for the constitution with 
slavery. The bill as amended passed both the House and the 
Senate and was approved by the President. But when the 
people of Kansas came to vote on the constitution they re- 
jected it by an overwhelming majority and thus the Free- 
Soilers were victorious. 

Perhaps never, in the history of this country, has the posi- 
tion of a public man attracted more attention than that of 
Douglas in this contest. To this time he had been a Democratic 
leader and a prominent candidate for the nomination for 
President. He had made great sacrifices to secure the support 
of the South ; but the South so far had only cultivated him, 
as it had cultivated Webster, to destroy him. Believing that 
the opposition of Douglas to the bill had defeated the admis- 
sion of Kansas as a slave state and the restoration of the 
equality of the South in the Senate, a hot wave of popular 
indignation, with all sorts of threats against Douglas, passed 
over the South. The North cheered him. Many Abolitionists 
belittled his act by interpreting it only as a bid for re-election 
to the Senate and as showing no actual change of heart; but 
realizing the good work he was doing, they smothered this 
feeling. In the storm it was feared that Douglas would turn 
back. Senator Broderick of California, equally as bold and 
hardly less forceful in speech, who a year later was to give up 
his life, in a duel with Judge Terry, a Southerner, over polit- 
ical differences, encouraged and supported Douglas. Douglas, 
however, was not the man, having placed his hand to tlio plough, 
to turn back; and he never did. The Republicans nominated 
Abraham Lincoln against him for the Senate and the mem- 
orable Lincoln and Douglas debate followed. Douglas was 
elected ; and Lincoln became President. But when the South 
rebelled and the war came, the last blast from the famous old 
trumpet of Douglas, that had led in so many fights, was lead- 
ing still, for the Union. 

Sumner watched the struggle with a keen interest. None 
had made greater sacrifices for this cause than he had done. 
For had he not spent weary days of suffering, when death itself 
would have been to him a relief? And the end of it was not 
yet, He longed to take part in the debate. He felt that his 



372 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

voice wanting would be noticed, in a cause for which he had 
suffered so much. He wished for the ability to speak once 
more with his old time vigor? He too mistrusted Douglas, 
thought his motive selfish but was willing to try him, knowing 
that he was essentially a partisan and if he once broke com- 
pletely with the Democrats he would necessarily come into the 
camp of the Eepublicans. With his temperament, neutrality 
would be impossible. But Sumner cautioned his friends that 
Douglas had not reached their camp yet. He desired to hear 
Douglas speak upon the Kansas question, but he was forced 
to deny himself even that ; his nervous organization was so sensi- 
tive that the excitement caused by a debate upon the question, 
in which lie felt such an interest, so affected him that he could 
not endure it. Even the surroundings of the Senate were often 
too much for him. Sitting there a weight seemed to over- 
spread his brain and he would be compelled to stagger out, 
feeling like a man of ninety years. 

He soon gave up all effort to sit in the Senate and arranged 
that he should be called to vote upon important questions, but 
otherwise to take no part in the proceedings. He passed his 
time as quietly as possible, in his own room, reading, or in the 
libraries and museums. He even spent part of his time as far 
away as Philadelphia, New York and Boston, going to Wash- 
ington only when his vote was needed. His purpose was to 
have politics as much as possible out of his mind and promote 
his recovery by keeping himself quiet. He sought by other 
studies to accomplish this purpose. With this view he com- 
menced tlie study of engravings, and devoted himself to it witli 
much diligence. He was thus employed during the winter of 
1857-8, while in Washington at the Smithsonian Institute, in 
New York at the Astor Library, and in Cambridge at the Har- 
vard Library, in all of which places there were considerable 
collections of engravings. Thereafter he continued it, at such 
times as his health permitted, till his complete recovery. The 
subject, which thus solaced his hours of suffering, always after 
retained a charm for him. 

At the end of his life he recorded his own experience : " Look- 
ing at an engraving," he wrote, " like looking at a book, may be 
the beginning of a new pleasure and a new study. Each per- 
son has his own story. Mine is simple. Suffering from con- 
tinued prostration, disabling me from the ordinary activities of 
life, I turned to engravings for employment and pastime. With 
the invaluable assistance of that devoted connoisseur, the late 
Dr. Thies, I went through the Gray collection at Cambridge, 
enjoying it like a picture gallery. Other collections in our 



LIFE OF CHAELEH 8VMNER 373 

country were examined also. Then, in Paris, while under- 
going severe medical treatment, my daily medicine for weeks 
was the vast cabinet of engravings then called Imperial, now 
National, counted by the million, where was everything to 
please or instruct. Thinking of these kindly portfolios, I 
make this record of gratitude, as to benefactors. Perhaps 
some other invalid, seeking occupation without burden, may 
find in them the solace that I did." 

He pursued the subject, with the same purpose and interest 
that an art student would the study of paintings. To effec- 
tually withdraw his mind from politics he threw much 
energy into it; so that he tired out others who undertook to 
follow him, but were less enthusiastic than himself. He 
sought to know what engravings had merit and what had none. 
He pointed out that with two colors, black and white, and 
the shading of one into the other, in the hands of a skilful 
artist all the merits of a painting could be produced so that 
the engraving presented to the eye the eifect of colors. He 
insisted that it required no less skill and artistic talent to 
produce the one than the other. He studied the lives of the 
engravers and pointed out that the best engravers had been 
painters of equal merit. The engraver must have the same 
knowledge of contours, the same sense of beauty and power 
of expression, as the painter; and these qualities, with the 
ability to use them, make the artist, whether painter or en- 
graver. Sumner in time acquired the skill to detect the qual- 
ities of an engraving with considerable accuracy; but, as with 
paintings his ability in this direction always had its limitations. 
He never acquired the ability, for example, as experts do, to de- 
termine, by an inspection, the place of an engraving in the 
order of impressions. His purpose, however, was recreation. 
But he soon found that with all he could do to avoid ex- 
j^itement, he was too close to the scene of activities for a man 
' in his condition. Late in April while in Washington, in his 
seat in the Senate, he suffered a relapse. The pressure upon 
the brain returned with increased force, attended by pains in 
the back along the spine and lameness^ in his legs so that he 
could not rise from his chair, when sitting, without intense 
effort and pain. This aggravated condition continued for a 
month without any substantial improvement. There was no 
apparent cause for it, but a slight over-exertion. His physi- 
cians were consulted and they advised him to go out of the 
country again and away from excitement. Some of his col- 
leagues, Seward, Wilson and others who witnessed his con- 
dition and his total unfitness for work, joined in urging this 



374 ^IP^ OP CHARLES SUMNER 

advice upon him. Sorrowfully lie yielded and again turned 
his face towards Europe. His first purpose was to go to 
Switzerland and get exercise on foot in the open air, commenc- 
ing with such moderate exertion as he could endure and in- 
creasing the amount daily as he hoped his strength would in- 
crease. He sailed on the ship Vanderhilt from New York, 
bound for Havre, on the twenty-second day of May, 1858, just 
two years after he received his injuries. 

From the steamer, on the eve of his departure, he addressed 
a letter 'to his constituents, the people of Massachusetts, in 
which he explained to them the occasion and purpose of his 
journey. He had been he said repeatedly encouraged by his 
condition to believe himself almost well, but had been as often 
disappointed. And now he was compelled to admit that in- 
juries so serious could not be readily cured. In the hope of 
complete restoration by travel, he was now only following the 
advice of his physician in going abroad again. He added : 

" These valedictory words would be imperfect, if I did not 
seize this occasion to declare, what I have often said less pub- 
licly, that, had I foreseen originally the duration of my dis- 
ability, I should at once have resigned my seat in the Senate, 
making way for a servant more fortunate in the precious ad- 
vantages of health. I did not do so, because, like other in- 
valids, I lived in the belief that I was soon to be well, and was 
reluctant to renounce the opportunity of again exposing the 
hideous barbarism of slavery, now more than ever transfused 
into the JSTational Government, infecting its whole policy and 
degrading its whole character. Besides I was often assured and 
encouraged to feel, that to every sincere lover of civilization 
my vacant chair was a perpetual speech." 

His letters bear ample evidence that he made this trip to 
Europe with great reluctance and compelled by what seemed 
absolute necessity, if he did not wish to pass the remainder of 
his life as a confirmed invalid. From the English Channel, 
before he left the ship he wrote : " I wish I were at home. It 
is with real reluctance that I proceed on this pilgrimage; and 
nothing but the conviction that it is the surest way to regain 
my health would keep me in it. I long for work, and especially 
to make myself felt again in our cause. The ghost of two 
years already dead haunts me." And again a little later: 
" It is with a pang imspeakable that I find myself thus ar- 
rested in the labors of life and in the duties of my position. 
This is harder to bear than the fire. I do not hear of friends 
engaged in active service, like Trumbull of Illinois, without 
a feeling of envy." 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 375 

Ilis position was rendered more trying by the insinuation of 
Southern members, that his injuries were not severe and that 
he was simply dallying away his time in European travel and 
loitering in picture galleries, while giving out the impression 
that he was a martyr to slavery, all for the studied purpose of 
creating prejudice against their institution. 

Chase wrote him : " It is amazing to see to what depths of 
baseness some of the partisan presses in the interest of tlie Oli- 
garchy will descend. Not content with half vindications of 
the assassination attempted upon you, several have had the in- 
finite meanness to represent you as playing a part all the while 
you have been suffering from the effects of the assault. When 
will men learn decency ? " 

Sumner landed at Havre June 1, 1858, and went on to Paris 
the next day, spending the niglit en route at Rouen. His pur- 
pose was to place himself under the care of some eminent 
French physician. In the selection of one, he had the benefit 
of the advice of Dr. George Hayward of Boston and of Mr. 
Henry Woods, an American merchant residing in Paris, and 
at their suggestion he saw Dr. Brown-Sequard, an eminent 
specialist in nervous diseases. He made a careful examination 
of Sumner on June 10, and announced that his trouble was 
caused by the direct blows on the head and indirectly by the 
reaction of these blows on the spinal cord, so that both the 
brain and the spine were affected by inflammation and ef- 
fusion of fluid producing pressure upon both. Sumner, satis- 
fied with the diagnosis which had lasted three hours with al- 
ternate applications of ice and hot water to the injured parts, at 
once asked the Doctor what remedy he would prescribe; to 
which the answer was, fire. The Doctor's purpose was to pro- 
duce a counter-irritant and thus remove the inflamed and 
unnatural condition. Sumner asked when the fire could be ap- 
plied and the Doctor answered " To-morrow, if you please." 
Sumner asked, " Why not this afternoon ? " And the same 
afternoon it was applied. The hope of regaining strength by 
exercise was at once abandoned, as arising from an entire mis- 
conception of his case. He required absolute quiet instead of 
exercise. 

The application was made by the moxa. In other words an 
inflammable substance, cotton-wood, was placed along the spine 
and in that position it was set on fire at the top. The fire 
burning downward, as the wood was consumed, the heat grad- 
ually increased till the back over the spine was burned to a 
blister. The wound was then dressed and cared for till healed. 
The applications were repeated till they had been made seven 



376 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

times, always without cliloroform or other drug to deaden the 
pain. The Doctor proposed chloroform, but upon Sumner 
asking if the treatment would more likely be successful with- 
out and being advised that it would, he promptly decided to 
endure the treatment without it. His suffering was intense. 
He sat in a chair during the first application, holding the back 
of it with his hands and, in his agony, he wrenched the back 
so severely that it was broken. The Doctor wrote : " I have 
never seen a man bearing with such fortitude as Mr. Sumner 
has shown the extremely violent pain of this kind of burning.'* 
The treatment occupied six weeks, the Doctor visiting him 
each day to dress his wounds or to renew the application of 
the moxa. It was then discontinued to await the appearance 
of its effects. 

The moxa is used only in rare cases, where a powerful 
counter-irritant is required. It causes such intense suffering 
to the patient that its utility as a mode of relief has been 
gravely questioned, because the effects of the remedy are often 
disastrous. It is said that Dr. Brown-Sequard, seeing the ex- 
cruciating pain it caused Sumner, never applied it again, be- 
lieving the agony too great for the human body to endure. It 
was during its application to Sumner, that he first experienced 
the paroxysms of the disease of the heart, angina pectoris, that 
fifteen years later caused his death. At first he did not realize 
the nature of this new trouble, but supposed it to be a neuralgic 
affection of the nerves of the chest, caused by sympathy with 
the nerves of the spine. It was thought to reduce them by hot 
baths and powerful internal remedies. But their recurrence 
continued until his death. Thus the moxa by creating a power- 
ful counter-irritant removed the morbid condition of the brain 
and spine, but it probably caused the angina pectoris. 

It has been gravely questioned by some of Sumner's friends 
whether the application of the moxa was not a mistake. They 
have felt that some other treatment might have secured a cure 
without the angina pectoris, which they believed was the result 
of the treatment given. They may be right. But Sumner to 
the day of his death, felt a grateful obligation to Dr. Brown- 
Sequard and was satisfied with the course followed. It must be 
remembered that his injuries were of a very serious character 
and that if a cure was to be had at all, which for a long time 
was doubtful, it could hardly be expected without leaving some 
traces behind it. As it was, from a condition of helplessness, 
which permitted no useful exertion, Sumner was restored to al- 
most perfect health, save for intervals comparatively brief, 
when he suffered from the new trouble : and fifteen of the most 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 377 

useful years of his life followed. This was something for which 
he and humanity have abundant reason to be grateful and, so 
far as we can now judge, we owe it to the radical measures 
taken by Dr. Brown-Sequard, to remove a radical trouble. 

At the time of Sumner's death Dr. Browu-Sequard, then liv- 
ing in New York, was engaged in delivering a course of six 
lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston. His fifth lecture was 
to have been delivered on March 11, but a hasty summons 
called him to Washington to attend Sumner, who was then 
dying. On this account, the delivery of this lecture was post- 
poned until March 15, when the Doctor reviewed his treatment 
of Sumner's case. What he said is worthy of a careful reading : 

" When, in 1857, I saw Mr. Charles Sumner, for the first 
time, he presented to me at once symptoms, which I could 
not but recognize as dependent upon an irritation of some 
fibres of the sympathetic nerve, and a paralysis of others. As 
you know, he received a terrible blow on the head. His spine 
as he was sitting had been bent in two places, the cranium 
fortunately resisting. This bending of the spine in two places 
had produced there the effects of a sprain. When I saw him 
in Paris he had recovered altogether from the first effects of 
the blow. He suffered from the two sprains of the spine and 
perhaps a slight irritation of the spinal cord itself. He had 
two troubles at that time. One was that he could not make 
use of his brain at all. He could not read a newspaper; could 
not write a letter. He was in a frightful state as regards the 
activity of his mind, as every effort there was most painful to 
him. It seemed to him at times as if his head would burst; 
there seemed to be some great force within pushing the pieces 
away from one another. Any emotion was painful to him. 
Even in conversation anything that called for depth of thought 
or feeling caused him suffering, so that we had to be very 
careful with him. He had another trouble resulting from 
the sprain which was at the level of the lowest dorsal vertebra. 
The irritation produced was intense and the result was very 
painful. When he tried to move forward he was compelled to 
push one foot slowly and gently forward but a few inches, and 
then drag the other foot to a level with the first, holding his 
back at the same time, to diminish the pain that he had there. 
It had been thought that he was paralyzed in the lower limbs, 
and that he had disease of the brain, and the disease of the 
brain was construed as being the cause of this paralysis of the 
lower limbs." 

" Fortunately the discovery made of what we call the vaso- 
motor nervous system, led me at once to the conclusion that he 



378 , J^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

had no disease of the brain and had no paralysis. He had 
only an irritation of those vaso-niotor nerves, resulting from 
the upper sprain in the spine. That irritation was the cause 
of the whole mischief as regards the function of the brain. 
The other sprain caused the pain which gave the appearance of 
paralysis. Wlien I asked him if he was conscious of any 
weakness in his lower limbs, he said, Certainly not; I have 
never understood that my physicians considered me paralyzed. 
I only cannot walk on account of the pain.'^ 

" What was to be done was to apply counter-irritants to 
those two sprains. That was done, I told him that the best 
plan of treatment would consist in the application of moxas, 
and that they produced the most painful kind of irritation of 
the skin that we knew. I urged him then to allow me to give 
him chloroform to diminish the pain, if not take it away alto- 
gether. I well remember his im])ressive accent when he replied : 
' If you can say positively that I shall derive as much benefit if 
I take chloroform as if I do not, then of course I will take it ; 
but if there is to be any desfree whatever of amelioration in case 
I do not take it, then I shall not take it.' " 

" I did not find courage enough to deceive him. I told him 
the truth — that there would be more effect, as I thought, if he 
did not take chloroform. And so I had to submit him to the 
martyrdom of the greatest suffering that can be inflicted on 
mortal man. I burned him with the first moxa. I had the 
hope that after the first application he would submit to the 
use of chlorofoi-m ; but for five times after that he was burned 
in the same way" (Sumner says seven times in all) "and 
refused to take chloroform. I had never seen a patient who 
submitted to such treatment in that way." 

" I cannot conceive that it was from mere heroism that he 
did it. The real explanation was this: Heaps of abuse had 
been thrown upon him. He was considered as amusing him- 
self in Paris ; as pretending to be ill. In fact lie wanted to get 
well and go home as quickly as possible. A few days were of 
great importance to him. And so he passed through that 
terrible suffering, the greatest that I have ever inflicted upon 
any being, man or animal." 

Here the Doctor broke down completely and was obliged to 
ask the audience to excuse him for the remainder of the even- 
ing, though he had only spoken half the usual time. The 
thoughts of a dear friend now no more and of the terrible 
sufferings he had endured, under his advice, to insure a re-^^ 
covery, completely unnerved him and he was unable to pro 
ceed farther except to add: " Since 18-57 the eminent man tha; 






LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 379 

has left us has been uuder my care and has been also a very- 
dear friend." 

The latter part of August, 1857, Sumner went to Aix-les- 
Bains under the advice of Dr. Brovvn-Sequard to supplement 
the treatment by fire with that of water. The baths of Aix are 
famous for their medicinal properties. The water, having some 
medicinal ingredients, issues from the earth very warm. Each 
morning it was applied, by alternate hot and cold jets, to Sum- 
ner's back and chest, where aifectcd. When he was thoroughly 
exhausted by this treatment, he was carried wrapped in a sheet 
and blanket to his hotel and put to bed. After a rest, he 
walked for exercise. He enjoyed the bath with the rest and 
absence from excitement which their location insured him. He 
was among entire strangers and, except once for a day, did 
not see an acquaintance during the three weeks he remained 
there. He devoted himself entirely to recovering his health. 
" The country," he wrote, " is beautiful and the people, simple 
and kind." The time passed pleasantly enough, but his 
lurking fear was that he might have to return to the dreaded 
treatment by the moxa. 

He left Aix the middle of September and spent the next 
two months in travelling through Northern Italy, Austria and 
through Germany, down the Rhine to Cologne. He was back 
in Paris by the middle of November. His condition, while he 
was thus loitering about to await the results of his treatment, 
showed substantial improvement. He gradually became con- 
vinced that he was at last on the road to recovery. How long 
it would take, and whether farther treatment would be neces- 
sary, he could not tell, but he was satisfied that his physician 
understood his case and that his injuries were yielding to the 
treatment. His strength was returning. He could take long 
walks without the recurrence of the menacing symptoms he 
once experienced. Upon his return to Paris Dr. Brown- 
Sequard was gratified with the progress he had made and called 
a consultation upon his case with Dr. Hayward of Boston and 
Dr. Trousseau, an eminent French physician. They approved 
the treatment and all agreed in advising against his contem- 
plated return to the United States to be present at the opening 
of Congress in December. They insisted that he should seek 
out sqme quiet place in the South of France, out of the way 
of travellers and avoid both work and excitement. Wilson his 
colleague united in urging him not to hurry his return, but to 
make his health his first care. 

He therefore followed tliis advice and went to Montpellier in 
the south of France. But he did so reluctantly. Tn returning 



380 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

from England before, to take his seat in the Senate, he had 
disregarded the advice of Dr. George Combe and Sir James 
Clark, the Queen's Physician, who both pronounced him unfit 
for his Senatorial duties; and the sequel showed that they 
were right and that he made a mistake in not heeding their 
warning. He was cautious now not to repeat his indiscretion. 

He remained in Montpellier three months, constantly under 
the care of a physician, Dr. Crouzet to whom he had been com- 
mended by Dr. Brown-Sequard. The direction of the latter 
was still followed as to the treatment to be given him. He was 
to spend a great portion of the time each day on his bed or a 
sofa and be treated daily by cupping, along the spine, to con- 
tinue the withdrawal of the inflammation from the injured 
parts. This treatment was painful, but not to be compared to 
the moxa. He avoided all excitement and undue exertion. 
During the whole time he was at Montpellier he saw only three 
or four persons he had previously known, three of them Amer- 
icans passing through, whom he enjoyed only for an even- 
ing; and not much oftener did he see an American paper. Of 
Montpellier he always retained pleasant memories, recalling a 
life for him unusually peaceful and happy and the farthest 
removed from strife and contention. 

He continued at Montpellier, his study of engravings. He 
attended lectures at the University and was invited to the ses- 
sions of a learned club, which met weekly, on Friday evenings. 
He made a few short excursions to places in the immediate 
neighborhood and enjoyed the acquaintance of some scholars 
of the city. In his intercourse with the people he met, he 
spoke French almost entirely. His only companion, to whom 
he spoke English, was a retired English officer. Captain J. R. 
Gordon, who was making his home in the city. Gordon had 
seen a varied career in the army, had served under Wellington 
and was a delightful companion. He was Sumner's most in- 
timate friend and they dined together, usually as often as twice 
each week. The Captain was acquainted with the French offi- 
cers, who commanded the garrison in the city, and their visits 
with them afforded a pleasant recreation. Sumner continued 
a correspondence with Captain Gordon till his death in 1863. 
But after all it was his books that furnished Sumner most of 
his recreation. To one friend he wrote: "Some fifteen hours 
out of the daily twenty-four I have passed on my back, and 
have always begun the day with a treatment which was toler- 
able only as an exchange for fire. But I have found society 
and solace in books, which I have devoured with my ancient 
ardor. No prisoner in the Bastile ever read more. God be 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 381 

praised for this taste, or appetite and for the returning strength 
which has enabled me to indulge it ! " To another he wrote : 
" How often I think with gratitude of my love of books, which 
furnishes me in my retreat such hosts of truest friends." 

Just before Sumner's return to America, in a letter to Cap- 
tain Gordon, he recorded his obligation to him and his faithful 
Doctor Crouzet, as well as his tender memories of Montpellier. 
" And now," he wrote, " I look with increased longing and 
tenderness towards Montpellier. My residence there in such 
retirement, compared with my life elsewhere, seems like a 
fable or a dream. Most truly do I wish that I could repeat it. 
I need not say how much you contributed to make it agreeable. 
I often think of my quiet walks, my visit to the library, the 
lectures, friends and then my weekly repast with you. I trust 
that my excellent doctor, who declined all fee, has a long list 
of patients who pay him well." Dr. Crouzet had become so 
much attached to Sumner, by their constant association during 
his treatment, that he refused all pay for his services. 

Sumner left Montpellier late in March for Italy, making con- 
siderable stays at Eome, Naples and Florence. At Cannes in 
the south of France he met Baron Bunsen, the German dip- 
lomat and author, and Lord Brougham, who had a chateau 
there, where he spent much of his time and who had anticipated 
his arrival, by a note cordially asking him to pay them a visit. 
At Rome he was the .guest of William W. Story. And while 
there he met J. Lothrop IMotley, the historian, and Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, the novelist, both of Massachusetts. The latter was 
then residing in Italy, after having resigned his consulate at 
Liverpool, England, and was writing "The Marble Faun." 
Sumner visited the studios and talked with the artists. He was 
at St. Peter's, the Vatican and the galleries; he enjoyed the 
Easter festivities. Everything reminded him of the early days 
when he saw these places of interest with such fidelity, under 
the advantage of health, and of boundless hope for the future. 
Of course he could not forget his friends, one Crawford, now 
dead, who in that happiest summer of his life, had opened the 
beauties of the Eternal City to him. How he longed to have it 
all back! "But not," he added, "I think, on the condition 
that I should live the intervening years over again." On leav- 
ing he wrote Wm. Story : " Eome now, as when I first saw it, 
touches me more than any other place. Then I have been so 
happy with you. Perhaps it will be long before we meet again ; 
but I cannot forget those latter delicious days. God bless you ! " 

From Eome, Sumner went to Civita Vecchia and thence by 
steamer to Leghorn and Genoa and then by rail to Turin. 



382 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Crossing from Turin over the Alps, he hired a private con- 
veyance at a cost of two hundred and twenty francs and made 
the journey alone with his postilion. The country was full of 
soldiers concentrated hy the French to assist an uprising of the 
Italians, against Austria, for national independence. As his 
train entered the station at Alexandria, the depot was crowded 
with them so that the train seemed to cut its way through the 
living mass and yet he remarked their good behavior, with no 
where a sign of disturbance. As his carriage ascended the Alps, 
he met the French army, the lancers riding ahead, all well 
mounted, in double file, as carefully dressed and as soldierly 
in bearing as if on the streets of Paris, with their lances borne 
upright and their pennons streaming, presenting a splendid 
appearance. As his driver approached, he was at a loss which 
side to turn, but the officer in command cried au milieu, an 
miJieu, and the ranks opened and his carriage passed on up 
between the ranks, Sumner not neglecting to tip his hat to the 
officers as he passed, who in turn acknowledged the salutation 
by taking off their hats or giving the military salute. The 
lancers past, the artillery followed and then came the troops 
of the line, trudging along the road, with here and there some 
foot-sore, half-sick straggler straying from the ranks or sitting 
dejected by the road-sicle, perhaps thinking of the home he had 
left and the loved ones his eyes might never behold again. 
Upon the whole it was a deeply interesting sight to Sumner. 
The day was charming and he seemed to be travelling in a pic- 
ture. Enthusiast as he was in the cause of universal peace, the 
thought of Italy, with her sunny skies, and art treasures, the 
genius of her children and her long and often brilliant history, 
now groaning under the yoke of the foreigner and struggling to 
be free, enlisted his sympathy and he confessed much of the 
ardor of the soldiers in the cause. 

He was back in Paris by May twenty-fourth and remained a 
month. He easily compared his condition with what it had 
been, when he left. He no longer had to think when he sat 
down how hard it would be to get up, walking, he did not have 
to move slowly, dragging one foot after the other. He could 
get up and down and walk about easily and naturally. At 
times too great exertion reminded him he was not altogether 
well, but he was assured that he was on the road to recovery 
and that time and care now would bring a cure. Dr. Brown- 
Sequard was satisfied with the progress he had made and ad- 
vised him to try sea-bathing. He went to Dieppe but finding 
no library in the place, he felt he could not endure it and re- 
maining only for a day, he crossed over to London, where he 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 333 

spent a month with his friends. He dined with Lord Cran- 
worth and Sir Henry Holland, was at Lansdowne House, 
Stafford House, Holland House, Cambridge House, Argyll 
Lodge, etc. " Lord Palmerston was as gay and jaunty as ever. 
Lord Clarendon as fascinating. Lord Brougham as fitful. Lord 
Lyndhurst as eloquent and clever. Lord Lansdowne as kind 
and Lord Cranworth as good; saw much of Macaulay at 
breakfasts and dinners — at least half a dozen times, and twice 
in his own house; his conversation was as full and interesting as 
ever. Kothing seemed too great or too small for his memory." 
Heard Bright for the first time; was asked if he was not like 
an American speaker and admitted he would be glad to claim 
him. He was granted by the Speaker a seat under the gallery 
of the House for a month and he occasionally occupied it. 

But the excitement of London was still too much for him 
and he went on July 23 to Bains Frescati, near Havre in 
France, where he remained six weeks, taking daily swimming 
baths and leading much the same quiet life as he had at Mont- 
pellier. He then made an excursion through Normandy and 
Brittany and spent three weeks more in Paris, purchasing en- 
gravings, manuscripts, bronzes and bric-a-brac, standing aghast, 
as he wrote, at his own extravagance. They were some of the 
same curios that he afterwards, in his Washington home, took 
such delight in showing his friends. He was back to London 
by October tenth, spending a day with the poet Tennyson at 
his home on the Isle of Wight, two days with Lord Stanhope at 
Chevening Park, where he slept in the room occupied for three 
years by Lord Chatham, another day at Argyll Lodge, where 
he met Gladstone again, and still another with the historian 
Motley at Walton on the Thames. Thus the time passed. He 
purchased of Joseph Parkes in London an album containing 
autographs of John Milton and Stafford, which he ever after 
prized as among his most precious possessions and for which 
he paid forty poimds. It is now in the library of Harvard 
College. These purchases, with the expenses of his sickness, 
consumed all the savings of his income so that now he came 
home, as he himself expressed it, with health as his only 
capital. 

He reached Boston from Liverpool on November twenty- 
first and, after a few days spent there, he went on to Wash- 
ington to be present at the opening of Congress in December, 
He stopped on the way at both New York and Philadelphia. 
To all whom he met and who inquired about his health he an- 
swered that he was well again. And so he was, able again to 
be at his post and discharge his full duty as Senator. 



CHAPTER XXV 

LOSS OF FRIENDS — IN THE SENATE — SPEECH ON " BARBARISM 

OF SLAVERY " — EFFECT OF THE SPEECH THE CAMPAIGN 

OF 1860 — LECTURE ON LAFAYETTE 

In Boston as in New York Snmner missed some of his early 
friends. Death had been doing its work among them. Rufus 
Choate, brilliant and able, ever to be remembered as one of the 
greatest of lawyers and one of the most eloquent of men, had 
closed a hard life, unsparingly spent in the service of his profes- 
sion. He had been one of Sumner's early and constant friends, 
their law offices being in the same building. Number Four, Court 
Street. Though they had differed widely in politics, Choate 
maintaining, with his rich rhetoric, the fortune and the fame 
of Webster, even beside the grave of his chief in one of the most 
beautiful eulogies ever pronounced, still he was too great not 
to be tolerant of Sumner's difference of opinion. And when 
he was gone, Sumner wrote : " I have a tender feeling for 
Choate. For years he was my neighbor in Court Street, and I 
have never had from him anything but kindness." Wm. H. 
Prescott too was dead. Gentle, scholarly and sympathetic, 
caring too little for party to allow it to influence his judgment 
of issues against the right, as a historian would see it, he had 
ever been one to whom Sumner turned with confidence for 
sympathy. As Sumner had sought the darkened room that 
sheltered Prescott's eyes, and chatted pleasantly in the days 
when he was threatened with blindness, so, after the assault, 
Prescott had sought the bedside of Sumner to show, by tender 
sympathy, how liis heart was moved. Theodore Parker too 
was gone. In the grasp of a deadly disease, the fearless 
preacher of the liberty of man as well as the religion of God, 
had gone to Europe, in the vain hope of recovery ; but it after- 
wards proved that it was only to find his grave, on the banks 
of the Arno, near the sepulchres of Michel Angelo and Galileo, 
in the Protestant cemetery of Florence. 

Dr. Howe was in Canada, whither he had gone to be beyond 
the reach of the process of the United States, in case he should 
be sought for complicity in the insurrection of John Brown 
at Harper's Ferry. Howe and Parker had known Brown and 
had entered into some of his anti-slavery projects, though 
384 



LIFE OF CHARLES SVM'NER 385 

neither had been parties to that at Harper's Ferry. Sumner 
regretted Howe's absence and urged him to return and brave the 
threatened storm. This Howe afterwards did. He testified 
before a Committee of investigation of the Senate and his 
want of knowledge of the Harper's Ferry affair became appar- 
ent. 

The first public part Sumner took in the proceedings of 
the Senate arose from this same question. On the day of 
the opening of the session, December fifth, 1859, Mason of 
Virginia moved the appointment of a committee to inquire into 
the facts of the seizure of the armory and arsenal of the United 
States at Harper's Ferry and the resolution concluded by pro- 
viding that the committee should have power to send for per- 
sons and papers. The committee was appointed and Mason 
was made chairman. They summoned John Brown, Jr., of 
Kansas and F. B. Sanborn and James Redpath of Massachu- 
setts. These all failed to appear. Thaddeus Hyatt of New 
York was also summoned. He appeared but refused to testify. 
Thereupon a resolution was offered in the Senate, by Mason on 
behalf of his committee, to commit Hyatt to the common jail of 
the District of Columbia till he should signify his willingness 
to answer. Sumner resisted the resolution to commit Hyatt. 
He insisted that, in such case, the Senate had no power to com- 
mit, that it could only do so, when sitting as a court, in cases 
of impeachment, in determining the election or qualification of 
its members and in punishing them for disorderly behavior, 
in all of which cases the Senate acted judicially, under express 
authority of the Constitution. Two other cases grew out of 
these, the power to punish for abuse of the privileges of the 
Senate, as in obtaining surreptitiously a copy of a treaty, or 
for misconduct on the part of its officers. Beyond these, he 
insisted the Senate had no such power. And especially did it 
not have the power of a grand jury and a court to investigate 
and punish crimes. But the resolution of commitment passed 
and Hyatt was sent to the common jail of the District, where 
he remained for more than three months and until the com- 
mittee in making the final report of their investigations recom- 
mended his discharge. Sumner visited him frequently while 
in jail and did what he could to relieve the severity of his 
punishment. 

The case of Mr, Sanborn illustrates still farther the length 
the slave power was willing to go. He was a teacher in Con- 
cord, Massachusetts, and having refused obedience to the 
summons of the Committee, it issued, to the Sergeant at Arms 
of the Senate, a warrant for his arrest. The writ was sent by 



3SG I'IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the Sergeant at Arms to the Marshal of the District for service. 
A deputy marshal under cover of uight, seized Sanborn in 
execution of the process and was about to carry him away, when 
his sister, by procuring the bells of the village to be rung, 
aroused the neighbors and a writ of habeas corpus having been 
issued, the execution of the process was prevented and the next 
day he was brought before the Supreme Court and discharged, 
the Court holding that, if the Sergeant at Arms had power to 
make the arrest, he, at least, had no power to delegate this 
authority to a U. S. Marshal. Upon his release Mr. Sanborn 
memorialized the Senate upon the outrage that had been done 
him. Sumner presented the memorial, with some remarks re- 
citing the facts and moving its reference to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee. This motion carried. Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, for the 
Committee reported a bill authorizing the Sergeant at Arms to 
appoint deputies. This was intended to obviate the decision 
of Chief Justice Shaw. But the bill was lost and there the 
incident ended. 

Slavery was the all-absorbing subject in Congress. Events 
were fast hurrying towards a crisis. The obsequious adminis- 
tration of Franklin Pierce had been followed by the still more 
obsequious rule of James Buchanan. The blustering threats of 
secession were crystallizing into a dogged determination to se- 
cede. The North was steeling itself to meet the issue of war 
if made. Each side stood watching the other, waiting to see 
what the next move was to be. Sumner re-entered the contest 
slowly; not because undecided upon the course to pursue, but 
to measure his newly recovered strength. He was given a place 
on the Committee on Foreign Relations, a place for wliich he 
was peculiarly fitted and which he was to continue to fill with 
rare ability for twelve years, ten of which he was to be its 
Chairman, and until removed as a punishment for his resis- 
tance of President Grant. He introduced a resolution pro- 
posing the abolition of the numerous custom-house oaths ad- 
ministered under acts of Congress and suggested a simple 
declaration as a substitute therefor, a reform that has since 
been made, much to the comfort of home-coming travellers 
from foreign lands. He also introduced a resolution to in- 
crease the safety of passengers in steamships for California, 
often dangerously overloaded and without proper accommoda- 
tions. Both these resolutions the Senate gave unanimous con- 
sent to consider. But when he introduced a number of peti- 
tions on the subject of slavery and moved their reference to 
the Committee on the Judiciary, on motion of Mason of Vir- 
ginia, they were promptly laid upon the table, all the Democrats 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 387 

twenty-five in number voting in favor of it, while the Repub- 
licans, nineteen, voted against it. 

A bill was again pending for the admission of Kansas. 
During the four years of Sumner's disability, changes had been 
taking place in the Territory. The constant influx of people 
from "the Free States had placed the Free-Soil party largely 
in the majority. Instead of practising non-intervention and 
refusing to vote, as they had done under the disgraceful sway 
of Atchison and his border ruffians, the Republicans had boldly 
entered the field and captured the Legislature. Instead of 
being bribed by the terms of the English Bill into seeking ad- 
mission as a State with a pro-slavery constitution, they came to 
Congress firmly insisting upon admission as a Free State. The 
last speech Sumner made in the Senate was entitled, The Crime 
against Kansas, delivered on May nineteenth-twentieth, 1856, 
on a bill for the admission of Kansas. Two days later for 
words uttered in that speech, he was struck down in the Senate 
Chamber. Now after four years of suffering, his first speech 
in the Senate on his return, was upon a bill, on the same sub- 
ject, the admission of Kansas. On the fourth day of June, 
1860, he again urged its admission as a Free State. Brooks, 
his assailant, it will be remembered, was dead and Butler 
for whose sake, the assault was alleged to have been made, had 
followed him. The circumstances of Sumner's return to the 
Senate were impressive. He opened his speech, entitled The 
Barbarism of Slavery, with these words : 

" Mr. President.^Undertaking now, after a silence of more 
than four years, to address the Senate on this important sub- 
ject, I should suppress the emotions natural to such an occa- 
sion, if I did not declare on the threshold my gratitude to that 
Supreme Being through whose benign care I am enabled, after 
much suffering and many changes, once again to resume my 
duties here, and to speak for the cause so near _my heart. To 
tlie honored Commonwealth whose representative^ I am, and 
also to my immediate associates in this body, wath whom I 
enjoy the fellowship which is found in thinking alike concern- 
ing the Republic, I owe thanks which I seize the moment to 
express, for indulgence extended to me throughout the pro- 
tracted seclusion enjoined by medical skill ; and I trust that it 
will not be thought unbecoming in me to put on record liere, 
as an apology for leaving my seat so long vacant, without 
making way,' by resignation, for a successor, that I acted under 
the illusion of an invalid, wliose hopes for restoration to natural 
health continued against oft-recurring disappointment." 

" When I last entered into this debate, it became my duty to 



388 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

expose the Crime against Kansas and to insist upon the imme- 
diate admission of that Territory as a State of this Union, with 
a Constitution forbidding slavery. Time has passed, but the 
question remains. Resuming the discussion precisely where I 
left it, I am happy to avow that rule of moderation which, it is 
said, may venture to fix the boundaries of wisdom itself. I 
have no personal griefs to utter: only a vulgar egotism could 
intrude such into this Chamber. I have no personal wrongs to 
avenge; only a brutish nature could attempt to wield that 
vengeance which belongs to the Lord. The years that have 
intervened and the tombs that have opened since I spoke have 
their voices, too, which I cannot fail to hear. Besides what am 
I, what is any man among the living or the dead, compared 
with the question before us? It is this alone which I shall 
discuss, and I begin the argument with that easy victory which 
is found in charity." 

Sumner's purpose in this speech, while incidentally advocat- 
ing the admission of Kansas as a free State, was to lay bare the 
essential character of slavery itself. Southern members of 
Congress, with much unction, had for years descanted on its 
humanizing influence, calling it ennobling, dispensing with 
titles of nobility as in the old world and recognizing a natural 
superiority of one race of men over another, as one of " two 
civilizations" that of the North and the other of the South, 
improving the character of both the slave and the master. 
Jefferson Davis had called it " but a form of civil government 
for those who by their nature were not fit to govern them- 
selves." While Hunter of Virginia had declared in the Senate 
that it was the very keystone of the arch that sustained our 
social fabric. Brown of Mississippi declared it was " a great 
moral, social and political blessing." Hammond of South 
Carolina insisted that its " frame of society is the best in the 
world." Sumner thought it too much the fashion to let such 
statements as these, made on the floor of the Senate, go 
unchallenged. 

He had for some time had it in mind to openly and em- 
phatically attack them in a speech in the Senate. He felt their 
absurdity and was convinced of their pernicious influence. 
Beyond this he felt that in the crisis that was approaching, 
public attention generally should be called to the inherent 
degrading tendency of the institution of slavery to both the 
master and the slave and to the country as well. He had 
already discussed Slavery, in arguing that it was sectional in 
character while Freedom was national, and again in urging the 
unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, and still again 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 339 

in insisting upon the sacred obligation of the Missouri Com- 
promise and the crimes that had been attempted against Kan- 
sas, Though upon all these occasions he had spoken at length, 
he felt that he had said too little of the essential character of 
slavery itself, partly from a disinclination to press a matter 
about which Southern people were so sensitive. But he thought 
that the time for any such consideration was past and that this 
aspect of the subject should now be set forth clearly. During 
his whole term of service in the Senate he had seen how often 
the cause he had so much at heart, had been baffled and de- 
feated by a pro-slavery President. The time for another 
Presidential election was at hand and with a divided and 
disorganized opposition he felt, for once, there was a prospect 
for the election of one who was against slavery. But whatever 
the result of that might be he was convinced that the effect of 
the delivery and circulation of such a speech could not be other- 
wise than good. 

Others differed from Sumner upon this subject. The times 
were ominous. Many good men wished by farther concessions 
to slavery to avert the calamities that seemed to threaten the 
country. Such a speech could have no other effect upon South- 
ern slave masters and their representatives in Congress than 
to inflame already angry passions and render compromise 
more difficult. Even some Republicans, hoping to carry the 
National election, feared its effect. They thought it might 
influence against them conservative voters who were interested 
in the new movement, by giving a too anti-slavery caste to its 
purpose. But Sumner differed from them again. He had 
concluded that too much had been yielded already and that the 
temper of the North demanded resistance to these extravagant 
pretensions of the South and a more manly and independent 
stand on the part of the representatives of the North in Con- 
gress. However, all agreed that if the unvarnished truth was 
to be told to the South in words, which in their plainness, had 
some of the appearance of severity, no one by suffering had 
gained a better right to tell it than Sumner. A brief summary 
of the speech will show the plainness of his language. 

He argued that slavery which created property, in man was 
an impiety, because according to the law of nature, written by 
the same hand that placed the planets in their orbits every 
human being had title to himself direct from the Almighty. 
A man might be poor in this world's goods but he owned him- 
self. Slave-masters might say they owned the sun and moon 
and stars but not that they owned man endowed with a soul 
destined to live immortal when sun, moon and stars have passed 



390 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

away. Slavery was a conij^lete abrogation of the marriage tie. 
JSTo such sacrament was respected under it. All such ties were 
subject to the selfish interest or still more selfish lust of the 
master whose license knew no check. The chastity of a whole 
race was exposed to violence while the result was recorded in the 
tell-tale faces of children glowing with a master's blood, but 
doomed, for their mother's skin, to slavery through descending 
generations. By polygamy one man had many wives bound to 
him by the marriage tie and protected by law, but slavery 
delivered a whole race over to prostitution and concubinage, 
unprotected by any law. For the children, it was a complete 
abrogation of the parental relation. At the command of a 
master, little ones, though clasped by a mother's arms, were 
swept under the hammer of the auctioneer. Slavery closed the 
door of knowledge to them, for the law in many places posi- 
tively forbid that a slave be taught to read even the book of life, 
where tliey might learn that a Savior died, that all men, with- 
out distinction of race, might be saved. While it fastened 
manacles upon the slave it thus also fastened manacles upon his 
soul. Slavery appropriated all the toil of its victims, losing 
every pretension of right. It was robbery and larceny both 
under the garb of law, sordidly taking away from the slave 
the fruits of the bitter sweat of his brow and at the same time 
the mainspring to exertion. From its home in Africa, such 
barbarism had been transplanted to American soil and thus 
were the prerogatives of barbarous, half-naked African chiefs 
perpetuated in American slave-masters. 

The fruits of such a system were too clearly to be seen in the 
comparative view of the development of the Free and Slave 
States. Slavery so degraded free labor as to stamp the brand 
of degradation upon the daily toil decreed by the Almighty 
and which contributes so much to a true civilization. No slave- 
master, of course, worked, and his pernicious example pervaded 
all classes, and the land itself became a prey to that paralysis 
caused by a violation of the law of God. Slave territory ex- 
ceeding by more than 200,000 square miles that of the Free 
States, in happiness of climate adapted to productions of 
special value, with more than fifty navigable rivers, never closed 
by the rigors of winter, with a long stretch of coast, indented 
by harbors, contrasting strangely with the North, with its 
climate often churlish, with few harbors and still fewer nav- 
igable rivers, both often swept by storms and closed by ice, yet 
the North had far outstripped the South in growth of popula- 
tion as well as in material and moral development. 

But turning from this discussion of the effect of slavery upon 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 391 

the slave, and what must be said of its influence upon their 
masters ? The denial of all rights in the slaves, of course could 
be sustained only by a disregard of other rights common to 
the whole community, rights of the person, of the press and of 
speech. Barbarous standards were unblushingly avowed. The 
swagger of the bully was called chivalry; swiftness to quarrel, 
courage ; the bludgeon was substituted for argument, and assas- 
sination became one of the fine arts. It produced the most per- 
nicious effect upon manners and transformed citizens into des- 
pots. There was no surer way of judging a people than by its 
laws; yet the slave-code protected such atrocities as to show 
that the laws of humanity had been totally perverted, stealing 
the fruit of another's lal)or, polluting the body, outraging the 
familv, making marriage impossible, decreeing ignorance. 

Sumner quoted illustrations to show the brutalizing relation 
of the master to the slave : a description in an advertisement of 
a runaway slave, " has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side 
of the forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his legs, is 
marked on the back with the whi^." 

"For Sale: — An accomplished and handsome lady's maid. 
She is just sixteen years of age ; was raised in a genteel family 
in Maryland ; and is now proposed to be sold, not for any fault, 
but simply because the owner has no further use for her. A 
note directed to C. D. Gadsly's Hotel, will receive prompt 
attention." 

A slave-master's cure for a runaway slave : " If a nigger ran 
away when he caught him, he would bind his knee over a log, 
and fasten him so he could not stir; then he'd take a pair of 
pincers, and pull out one of his toe nails by the roots, and tell 
him if he ever ran away again, he would pull out two of them, 
and if he ran away again after that, he told him he'd pull out 
four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to 
do it more than twice ; it always cured them." 

Another instance was given, where a master enraged at his 
slave for an attempt to run away, had deliberately cut the 
tendon of his heel, illustrating the language of the Supreme 
Court of North Carolina, that " The power of the master must 
be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect." 

If the picture could receive a darker coloring than such 
illustrations gave it, Sumner declared it could only be, by paint- 
ing the character of the slave-overseer, tlie slave-breeder and 
the slave-hunter in whom the essential brutality, vulgarity and 
crime of slavery were all embodied. 

The effect of such influences, he said, upon the relations of 
slave-masters to each other and to society and government were 



393 I-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

unmistakable. Nobody could be surrounded by vice and 
violence without coming under its influence. Instead of en- 
nobling the master, slavery dragged him down. Violence, 
brutality and injustice must be reproduced in those who lived 
within their influence. Living with slaves, seeing their deg- 
radation and ignorance closed the eyes of the master and 
withdrew the spirit of emulation produced by the society 
of equals or association with superiors. The master saw 
nothing to excite his emulation or remind him of his deficien- 
cies. Accustomed from youth to age to brutality and violence 
he naturally adopted the bludgeon, the pistol and the knife in 
his relation to society, and to his home; and the street fight and 
the brawl marked his appearance everywhere. " Men slaughter 
each other with almost perfect impunity," read the Governor's 
message to the Legislature of Kentucky, in 1837, and he urged 
them to redeem their State from a condition which would 
justify the name of " the Land of Blood." " Why do we hear 
of stabbings and shootings almost daily in some part or other 
of our State ? " asked the Gpvernor of Alabama. 

Slavery, he argued, was against all freedom of speech or of 
the press, for no one in the slave States could speak or write 
plainly about it, except at his peril. A book agent offered for 
sale Dr. Channing's sermon on West India Emancipation 
and was prosecuted for it. A large number of copies of Spur- 
geon's sermons were publicly burned at Montgomery, Alabama ; 
and the use of Wayland's Moral Science was forbidden in one 
of the colleges of that State because they contained " abolition 
doctrines." Speeches delivered in the United States Senate 
were stopped in the post-office and booksellers receiving them 
were mobbed, while once at least the speeches were seriously 
proceeded against by a Grand Jury. Abolitionists were 
watched and mobbed for their opinions. Eewards were offered 
in the public newspapers for the heads of Members of Congress ; 
Five thousand dollars for that of William H. Seward, ten 
thousand dollars for the delivery of Joshua E. Giddings at 
Eiclimond ; and the Governor of Georgia was recommended 
by a meeting of slave-masters to offer five thousand dollars for 
either of ten persons, citizens of New York, Massachusetts and 
one of Great Britain, none of whom had ever been in Georgia. 
Even in the Free States, anti-slavery meetings were broken up, 
newspapers mobbed and in one case the editor was killed. 
Samuel Hoar of Massachusetts appointed a Commissioner from 
his State to Charleston to prevent the detention and sale, as 
slaves, of free colored mariners from his own State, who might 
touch at that port, was excluded from his hotel by the pro- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 393 

prietor for fear of a mob, and forcibly driven from South 
Carolina. 

The exhibitions of the barbarism of slavery in Congressional 
history, he said, were not less marked. During the debate on 
the compromise measures of 1850, Foote of Mississippi drew 
upon Benton of Missouri a five-chambered revolver and cocked 
it; Arnold of Tennessee was called by Daw^son of Louisiana 
" a d — d coward," " a d — d blackguard," and he threatened if 
Arnold did not behave better he would " cut his throat from 
ear to ear." Challenges to duel were common on the floor of 
the Senate from slave-masters, and Jefferson Davis there vin- 
dicated the duel as a mode of settling personal differences. 
" Insult, bullying and threats characterize the slaveholders in 
Congress," said John Quincy Adams. And at a public dinner 
at Waterborough, South Carolina, this toast was drunk, " May 
we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a Federalist 
or a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy Adams." 
Joshua E. Giddings presented to the House resolutions affirm- 
ing that slavery was a local institution and could not exist 
outside of the slave States. For this the House censured him ; 
Giddings resigned and his constituents at once re-elected him. 
Dawson of Louisiana once drew a bowie knife to assassinate 
him. Again when one day speaking of a certain transaction in 
which negroes were concerned in Georgia, Black of that State, 
raised a bludgeon and standing in front of Giddings' desk 
declared that if he repeated that language again, he would 
knock him down. " It was a solemn moment for me, I had 
never been knocked down, and having some curiosity upon that 
subject, I repeated the language," said the six-foot Representa- 
tive, when afterwards describing the scene. But Black did not 
attempt to knock him down. Dawson of Louisiana, however, 
put his hand in his pocket and with an oath threatened he 
would shoot Giddings, at the same time cocking the pistol so 
that all around could hear it click. But he did not shoot. 
Foote dared Hale in the Senate to come to Mississippi and he 
should be hung and that if necessary he would himself assist in 
the operation. Hammond, of South Carolina, in the House, 
warned the Abolitionists to stay away from South Carolina, 
unless they expected " a felon's death." Payne, of Alabama, 
declared that if they came to the South they w^ould hang them 
like dogs. Martin, of Virginia, told Lovejoy of Illinois, that 
if he came among them tliey would do with him as they had 
with John Brown — hang him up as high as Haman, and in the 
same debate he was called by other Southern members a 



394 ^1^'e: of charles sumner 

" black-liearted scoundrel and nigger stealing thief," " crazy," 
" a perjured villain,"' and " a mean, despicable wretch." 

Sumner scouted the idea that slavery was justified by the 
alleged inferiority of the black race. For if that be true, he 
argued, what would hinder the same principle being applied 
to other races? Wliy might not the Japanese also be declared 
inferior and all enslaved ? Why might not some of the weaker 
and less highly civilized white races be declared inferior to 
others and enslaved ? 

The doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, or permitting the 
people of a territory to determine whether it should be formed 
into a Slave or Free State could find no support anywhere. 
There are rights which can neither be voted up nor voted down, 
for they are above all votes. Neither the people, nor Congress, 
nor any Territorial Legislature could give Slavery a legal 
existence in any Territory of the United States. He therefore, 
urged them to so declare by legislative act admitting Kansas as 
a Free State. 

Sumner closed with these prophetic words, which were six 
months later to be realized in the election of Lincoln: "Thus, 
Sir, speaking for Freedom in Kansas, I have spoken for Free- 
dom everywhere. You may reject it, but it will be only for to- 
day. The sacred animosity of Freedom and Slavery can end 
only with the triumph of Freedom. The same question will 
be carried soon before that high tribunal, supreme over Senate 
and Court, where the judges are counted by millions, and the 
judgment rendered will be the solemn charge of an awakened 
people, instructing a new President, in the name of Freedom, 
to see that Civilization receives no detriment." 

When Sumner ceased speaking, Senator Chestnut, of South 
Carolina arose and counselled that no notice whatever should 
be taken of the speech, saying that Sumner " after ranging 
over Europe, crawling through the back doors, to whine at the 
feet of British aristocracy, craving pity and reaping a rich 
harvest of contempt, the slanderer of States and men, had now 
reappeared in the Senate," that they were " not inclined again 
to send forth the recipient of punishment, howling through the 
world, yelping fresh cries of slander and malice." Sumner 
merely replied that he would print the words of Chestnut, with 
the speech, as an additional illustration of the " Barbarism of 
Slavery." " I hope he will do it," rejoined Hammond, Chest- 
nut's colleague from South Carolina, who had been sitting, 
during part of the speech, with Keitt, the accomplice of Pres- 
ton S. Brooks, at his side. 

The attitude of Senators towards the speech was various. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 395 

The feeling of Southerners was one of hostility. They 
gathered in groups about the doors, came in and out, or sat for 
a moment with the studied appearance of inattention. Some 
of them were purposely noisy; and once Sumner stopped, while 
the Chair rapped them to order. Breckenridge sat and pre- 
tended to read a book, but his eyes wandered from the page, 
and he finally put it away and sat gazing at the speaker, with a 
frown, till he closed. Jefferson Davis, too, pretended to read, 
but it was remarked, that the copy of " The Globe " which he 
held in his hand was upside down. Wigfall, with lowering and 
sinister countenance, passed whispering from one Senator to 
another, apparently hatching mischief, but was met only by 
shakes of the head, from the older members. Mason came in 
and sat down and commenced to write a letter, never noticing 
the speaker. But Lamar, of Mississippi, scholar and orator 
himself, had come in from the House and occupied one of the 
vacant chairs of the Senators and seemed to enjoy, with a 
relish, the intellectual treat, though upon a subject, on which 
he entertained radically different opinions. The Eejmblicans 
were not all in sympathy. Some, like Crittenden, still hoped 
the approaching crisis might be averted by compromise; and 
they deprecated a speech that seemed to destroy every hope of 
such a cure. But Wilson, his colleague, with King, of New 
York, and Burlingame and Lovejoy of the House sat near him 
throughout, apparently anticipating violence and, if not alto- 
gether approving the propriety of the speech, at least recogniz- 
ing his right to judge of that and feeling themselves assured 
that he was only telling the truth and telling it well. 

The speech was read throughout in a moderate tone and 
Sumner, after its delivery, was able to walk to his lodgings, a 
mile from the Capitol, without any bad effects apparent. His 
health liad borne the test he had so long hoped for ; he was back 
in his place in the Senate, again able to do his work. For fear 
of violence, Wilson and Burlingame, with another friend, ac- 
companied him home. There was some talk of violence, but 
the disposition of Southerners generally was to treat the speech 
with the contempt of silence, perhaps feeling the weight of 
Brooks' conduct upon themselves. The only apparent threat of 
violence came four days later, when Sumner was sitting alone 
in his rooms, in the evening, and a man called and finding 
him alone said he was one of the abused and slandered class, 
against wliom the speech had been made, and that he was one of 
four who had come to Washington to demand reparation. 
He became so violent in his manner that Sumner finally or- 
dered him out of the house and he went away threatening to 



396 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

return again, with his companions. Sumner informed Wilson 
of what had happened and Wilson insisted that some precau- 
tions should be taken. Later in the evening another stranger 
came to the door and asked to see Sumner alone, but, being told 
that he was not alone, he went away. Still later three men 
came together and asked to see Sumner alone and, on being 
refused, said they had come to the city to see him and that they 
would call again in the morning, for a private interview, and, 
if they did not get it, they would cut his d — d throat, before the 
next night. The situation alarmed Sumner's friends and they 
arranged to be with him, John Sherman and Burlingame sleep- 
ing in his apartments, in a bedroom adjoining his own. Others 
accompanied liim to and from the Capitol. Such was the con- 
dition of affairs in Washington in the months preceding the 
War ! 

The sequel showed that Sumner judged better than his 
colleagues the public pulse. There had been so much politics 
mixed with the discussion of the slavery question, adjustment 
and compromise, the balancing of rights, even a measurement 
of the length discussion should go in Congress, that the people 
had grown tired. In their sturdy integrity, they could not see 
the reason for all these limitations. Sumner had abandoned 
them and had struck at the heart of the question. At last the 
essential character of slavery, as one mind saw it, had been 
frankly laid open in Congress. And the people praised it. 
And in the Presidential campaign which followed, perhaps in- 
duced by the demand for such a cliscussion. Republican speakers 
generally pursued the same course in discussing slavery. De- 
mands for Sumner as a campaign speaker were pressing. He 
consented to deliver an address to the Young Men's Republi- 
can Union at Cooper Institute in New York City on his way to 
Boston. A large audience greeted him and he spoke of the 
Fepithlican Parti/, its Origin, Necessity and Permanence. 
But, guarding his health, he declined all invitations to speak 
during the campaign, outside of Massachusetts. 

Sumner's speech on The Barbarism of Slavery was the last 
speech, on the general question of slavery, in Congress. It 
closed the discussion, which had occupied Congress, with ever 
increasing acrimony, since the formation of the Republic. 
The next day, after a brief consideration of some questions of 
the boundary of the proposed state, the bill for the admission of 
Kansas was laid aside in the Senate; there was a brush upon 
the same questions, in the House, a week later and then Con- 
gress adjourned. The election of Lincoln followed. When 
Congress met again the South was going off on its mad career 



LIFE OF CHARLES SU2INER 397 

of Secession. The battle was transferred to other fields. No 
one was left in Congress to defend Slavery and before the re- 
turn of its friends, Emancipation had been proclaimed and the 
Country was free. 

The Presidential campaign of 1860, was acrimonious. The 
National Democratic Convention had divided, one faction nom- 
inating John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, and another 
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. An organization styling itself 
the Constitutional -Union Party had nominated John Bell of 
Tennessee for President, with Edward Everett of Massachusetts 
for Vice-President. These parties were all pro-slavery. Doug- 
las had no hope in the South, and Breckinridge had none in 
the North. The real opponent of Breckinridge in the South 
was the Bell-Everett party, for Bell was a slave-holder and 
Everett was for peace at any price, which meant, of course, that 
he would submit to Southern domination. Abraham Lincoln 
of Illinois and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine had been nominated 
by the Republicans. Thus the Democrats entered the contest 
hopelessly divided; the division within their own ranks de- 
stroying every reasonable hope of success ; while the nomination 
of Everett, a Boston man, of high character and ability, and 
personally popular, who had for years deprecated the strife 
between the North and the South and had sincerely done much 
to allay it, added to the strength of his party in Massachusetts. 
He had a large influence with the conservative element in Bos- 
ton which Hannibal Hamlin of the neighboring State of Maine 
on the ticket with Lincoln could not outweigh. The Republi- 
cans of Massachusetts had nominated John A. Andrew, of 
Boston, for Governor, and Anson G. Burlingame was again the 
candidate, in Sumner's District, for Congress. 

Naturally Sumner felt a deep interest in the result. John 
A. Andrew, had occupied offices near him, when he was prac- 
tising law, and the early friendship then commenced had 
continued, with increasing strength, as they became interested 
in the anti-slavery conflict. Burlingame had already been a 
Member of Congress and was Sumner's most constant friend in 
the House. He felt a personal interest in his return. Sumner's 
anxiety for the result was increased by the attitude of the Bell- 
Everett people, the rump of the Webster Whigs, with whom, 
since his first appearance in politics, he had been in constant 
antagonisnu But above all Jocal considerations, was the 
national triumph, which he hoped for the cause, for which he 
had labored so long and suffered so much. Until now success 
had seemed far away and though he never doubted the ultimate 
triumph of the eternal principles of right as he saw them, he 



398 LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 

was compelled to confess oftentimes that the great day might 
be far away. But now the unexpected and hopeless division 
of the Democrats seemed to open a great opportunity. If the 
Republicans could only succeed in obtaining control of the 
National Government, he thought the onward march of Slavery 
could be checked. 

Sumner entered into the campaign, in his own State, with 
a will. As early as July thirtieth, in an open letter he pre- 
dicted the success of Lincoln. He continued to urge his friends 
to increased effort, with this end in view, till the day of the 
election. He spoke before the Massachusetts State Convention, 
which was held at Worcester, on the " Presidential Candidates 
and the Issues." With Henry L. Dawes, his successor in the 
Senate, and Henry Wilson his colleague he addressed an open- 
air mass meeting at Myricks Station; and again, with Senators 
Wilson and John P. Hale and the candidate for Governor, 
John A. Andrew, he addressed an open-air meeting at Fram- 
ingham, on the " Threat of Disunion by the Slave States " and 
again, at Worcester, he spoke for the Republican candidate for 
Congress on the theme No Popular Sovereignty in Territories 
can establish Slavery. Eli Thayer had been elected to Con- 
gress from that District as a Free-Soiler, but he had been se- 
duced by the Douglas theory of Popular Sovereignty, and gone 
off from his Party, on this question. Wlien a candidate this 
year for renomination, before the Republican convention, he 
had been defeated by Goldsmith F. Bailey. Thayer then came 
out as an independent candidate. The contest was close. When 
it was announced that Sumner was to speak for Bailey, Thayer 
challenged him to a joint discussion, fearing the effect of his 
speech ; Sumner declined, and spoke to a crowded house, many, 
unable to secure even standing room, being turned away. Bai- 
ley was elected and Sumner w^as given the credit of having 
turned the tide in his favor. Before the expiration of his 
term, however, Bailey died and Sumner was called upon, in 
his place in the Senate, to pronounce his eulogy. 

On the evening before the election, Sumner presided and 
spoke at a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, where he declared 
that the next day they would not only choose a new President, 
but a new government, and he especially emphasized the impor- 
tance of voting for the Republican candidates from Boston. 
Burlingame and Rice, rather than the Bell-Everett candidates 
Appleton and Bigelow. He declared that the latter if elected, 
with all New England and the North against them, would be 
as solitary, at Washington, as Robinson Crusoe and Friday on 
their island. The Bell-Everett party, he said, from its lofty 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 399 

airs in Boston, reminded him of Brahmins, who imagine them- 
selves of better clay than others, or of Chinese, who imagine 
themselves cousins of the Sim and Moon. 

But the influence of Sumner's speeches reached by the press, 
was much larger than that by his voice. The careful prep- 
aration that he gave them, usually writing them out before 
delivery, the animosity of the South towards him, tlie assault by 
Brooks and his recognized leadership, among anti-slavery men, 
all conspired to give them an especial interest. A very large 
edition of his speech on The Barbarism of Slavery was printed 
in Washington immediately after its delivery, another at 
Boston with a portrait and another at San Francisco, witli 
the Republican platform. Besides being printed in the Times, 
Herald, Trihune and ^Yorld, in full, there was a pamphlet 
edition of more than 50,000 copies, of his speech on the Origin, 
Necessity and Permanence of the Repuhlican Party, printed 
and distributed by the Young Men's Eepublican Union of New 
York ; while an edition of 10,000 copies of the same speech was 
printed and distributed by the Republican Central Committee 
of California. A Boston journal printed 10,000 copies of his 
speech at Worcester, for Mr. Bailey to distribute in his dis- 
trict. 

These facts sustain the deliberate judgment of an eminent 
witness of the events, Mr. Blaine, wlio years afterwards, wrote : 
that Sumner " did more than any other man to promote the 
anti-slavery cause, and to uprear its standard in the Republican 
party. * * * His written arguments were the anti-slavery 
Classics of the day, and they were read more eagerly than 
speeches which produced greater effect on the hearer. Colonel 
Benton said that William Pinkney of Maryland was always 
thinking of the few hundred who came to hear him in the Sen- 
ate Chamber, apparently forgetting the million who might read 
him outside. Mr. Sumner never made that mistake. His ar- 
guments went to the million. They produced a wide spread 
and prodigious effect on public opinion and left an indelible 
impression on the history of the country." 

The result of the election of 18G0 was a great victory for the 
Republicans. Lincoln had in Massachusetts almost twice as 
many votes as all the other candidates together. In the elec- 
toral coHeges, he had one hundred and eighty votes ; while all 
the others had only one hundred and twenty-three. The result 
showed that even without the split in the Democratic party, its 
candidate could not have been elected. The House of Repre- 
sentatives was Republican ; the Senate was still held by the 
Democrats, by a reduced majority. Andrew was elected Gov- 



400 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ernor and entered upon a career that established him as one of 
the most famous in the circle of War Governors. But in all 
Sumner's rejoicing, there was a distinct note of sadness. Bur- 
lingame was defeated, for Congress, by Appleton, by less than 
three hundred votes. It cut ofE the promise of a bright Con- 
gressional career and removed one of the supports, on which 
Sumner constantly leaned. President Lincoln, however, rec- 
ognizing the injustice of the popular verdict, afterwards ap- 
pointed him Minister to China and there, and in the service 
of the Chinese Empire, he continued, until his death, in 1870, 
at the age of forty-nine. 

During this year Sumner lost his friend, John W. Brown, 
his college classmate and room mate. He died May 1, ISGO. 
Brown was commemorated by Sumner by a contribution to 
a little volume, printed in memoriam. Sumner was warmly at- 
tached to him. Of all his classmates, he thought he gave, in 
college, the largest promise of future eminence. He was a 
bright, wayward fellow, of a bold and independent habit of 
thought. It was feared his waywardness might sometime wreck 
his prospects. Sumner may have caught from him something 
of the spirit of the iconoclast, which he showed, when he de- 
livered his oration on TJie True Grandeur of Nations, advocat- 
ing universal place, before the soldiery of Boston, and again 
when he maintained his long struggle against slavery. Little 
were Brown's friends, of his college days, prepared to expect of 
him the quiet, peaceful, unobtrusive life he afterwards led. 
After a short term, in the Legislature of Massachusetts, he put 
aside a nomination for State Senator and thereafter disappeared 
from public life entirely, caring little for political influence, and 
hardly known, except to a few intimates. So that Sumner 
could suggest of him, when gone, the questionable praise, " Bene 
vivit, qui bene latuit." 

During this summer, Sumner prepared a lecture on the char- 
acter of Lafayette. It was first delivered in Tremont Temple 
in Boston, on October 1, 1860, though it was afterward repeated 
at Concord, Lowell and Providence and, on his way to Washing- 
ton, at Cooper Institute, in New York City, and, during the 
Congressional vacation, at Philadelphia. At Concord, he was 
the guest of Ealph Waldo Emerson and responded to a serenade 
from his front door. At the lecture, in New York," William 
Cullen Bryant presided. From Philadelphia, after the lecture 
had been announced, Sumner received a letter, from the pres- 
ident of the institute, under whose auspices it was to be de- 
livered, asking him to omit any reference to slavery. Sumner 
replied that he could not be guilty of such infidelity, in de- 



Life of charles sumner 401 

lineatin^ the life of one, whose whole career had been devoted 
to the cause of human freedom, that it would be akin to the 
conduct of the pirates of the Caribbean sea, M'ho repeated the 
Ten Commandments omitting, " Thou shalt not steal." And 
he added : " For many years I have addressed associations, 
societies and meetings of all kinds; but never before have I 
been met by any hint of interference with the completest lati- 
tude of speech', according to my sense of the duties and pro- 
prieties of the occasion. Long accustomed to free speech, I am 
too old now to renounce it. * * * Of course my place in your 
list is now vacant." The limitation, however, was afterwards 
withdrawn and Sumner spoke, according to the appointment, 
to a crowded house. 

The purpose of the lecture was to express the admiration he 
felt, for the character of a truly good and great man. He had 
been attracted to Lafayette's career, during his protracted stay 
in Paris, while under the care of Dr. Brown-Sequard. He had, 
it will be remembered, visited his grave within the circle of 
the old walls of the cemetery of Picpus, watched over by white- 
hooded nuns, of the neighboring convent. A little later he had 
visited his family seat. La Grange, a picturesque and venerable 
castle, with its towers and moat and drawbridge, its gate 
hung by ivy, planted by the English statesman, Charles James 
Fox, and " a large courtyard within, embosomed with trees, 
except on one side, where a beautiful lawn spread its verdure." 
Some of these items of personal interest he incorporated in his 
lecture. Again he revealed his sympathy with noble lives and 
his talent for commemorative oratory. The lecture contained 
passages of beauty, hardly excelled by any in all his works. 

Slavery was to Lafayette " a most lamentable drawback, on 
the example of independence and freedom, presented to the 
world, by the United States." It was this lesson from his life 
that Sumner wished especially to impress, — his fidelity to free- 
dom everywhere. In the United States there was a crisis ap- 
proaching, upon this question. Slavery was making new de- 
mands and new threats; and Sumner thought it important to 
strengthen the hearts of the people of the North, by holding up 
before them, the example of Lafayette and calling their atten- 
tion, to those scenes in the life of one, so justly and universally 
revered by Americans, showing his devotion to the cause of 
universal freedom and the equality of all men before the law. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

COMPROMISE — SECESSION SUMNER AGAINST CONCESSION — 

BALTIMORE MOBS — EMANCIPATION* 

Sumner was in his seat at the opening of Congress, on the 
fourth of December, 1860. It then became certain that tlie 
South was determined to secede. The Message of President 
Buclianan to Congress recognized tliis and declared his in- 
ability to control the seceding States. Powell of Kentucky, in 
the Senate moved the appointment of a committee, to consider 
tliis part of the President's Message, to inquire into the dis- 
tracted condition of the country, the grievances between the 
North and the South and to report, by bill or otherwise. This 
resolution, after some debate, was adopted, on December eigh- 
teenth. During the debate, Sumner read, in the Senate, an 
unpublished autograph letter of Andrew Jackson, written, 
just after his conflict with the Nullifiers in 1833, to Eev. 
A. J. Crawford ; in which Jackson declared, that the tariff was 
only the pretext for Nullification, that Disunion and a Southern 
Confederacy was the real object and that the next pretext 
would be the Slavery question. At the time the letter was read, 
Crawford was living in the South and its use made his surround- 
ings so unpleasant that he soon destroyed it. On the thirty- 
first of December, the Committee had to report that they were 
unable to agree upon any plan of adjustment. Yet leading men 
of both parties were on the Committee, Breckinridge, Hunter, 
Toombs, Douglas and Jefferson Davis, of the Democrats; Sew- 
ard, Collamer, Crittenden and Wade of the Republicans. 

On December eighteenth, Crittenden brought forward prop- 
ositions of compromise, since known as the " Crittenden Prop- 
ositions." They proposed to prohibit slavery North of 36° 
30', but declared, that in all territory south of this line, now 
held, or hereafter to be acquired. Slavery of the African race 
was to be recognized, as existing, and should not be interfered 
with by Congress but protected, by the territorial governments ; 
and all territory, north or south of the line, was to be admitted, 
with or without slavery, as the constitution of the new States 
might provide. Congress was to have no power to abolish 
slavery, in places under its jurisdiction, nor within tlie limits of 
slave-holding States, nor within the District of Columbia, while 
402 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 403 

either Virginia or Maryland continued slave States. By con- 
stitutional amendment, the United States was to pay the 
owner for a fugitive slave, if obstructed in the recovery of him ; 
and no future amendment of the Constitution should give Con- 
gress power, to abolish or interfere with slavery, in any of the 
States ; the elective franchise, and the right to hold office, should 
not be exercised by persons, in whole or in part of the African 
race. 

These were extreme measures. For the Republicans to 
agree to them, meant to give up all they had fought for, in 
the late election, and more. The propositions proposed to 
carry slavery, into the Territories, and to fix all South of 
36° 30' as slave and all States everywhere, whether north or 
south, of that line, as slave, if the people, when seeking admis- 
sion, adopted a pro-slavery constitution. Congress was to have 
no power to abolish slavery anywhere. The Constitution was 
to be amended, so as, to confirm forever, this condition, to 
strengthen the fugitive slave law, to remove from Congress the 
power to interfere with slavery, in any State, and finally, to 
take from free colored people, the right to vote and hold office, 
in the few places, where these rights were already enjoyed. 
Instead of restricting and curtailing slavery and giving good 
people reason to hope for its extinction, it was thus proposed, to 
strengthen and extend it, and fix it irrevocably on the Eepub- 
lic. Such concessions were not to be thought of by liberty lov- 
ing people. 

Clark, of New Hampshire, proposed to meet them, by counter 
propositions. He introduced in the Senate, on January ninth, 
18G1, two resolutions, one, that the provisions of the Consti- 
tution were ample for the preservation of the Union and the 
protection of the country, that it needed to be obeyed rather 
than amended; and, another, that to the maintenance of the 
existing Union and Constitution, should be directed all the 
energies of the Government and of all good people. On motion, 
these resolutions of Clark were substituted, by a vote of twenty- 
five to twenty-tliree, Sumner voting for them. This result was 
])rought about by the refusal of Southern Senators to vote. 
The vote was afterwards reconsidered and lost, several Sena- 
tors desiring to vote on the " Crittenden Propositions," as in- 
troduced. When the Crittenden propositions were voted on, 
they were lost also, Sumner voting against them. 

At the close of the session, a joint resolution was passed by 
both the Senate and the House proposing an amendment to 
the Constitution, to forbid Congress, from interfering with 
slavery, in any State, where it already existed, Sumner vot- 



404 ^IP^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ing against it. This would not have been inconsistent with 
the position of the Eepublicans ; for even Lincoln declared that 
he had no purpose to interfere with slavery where it then 
existed. But the amendment was never made. 

Events were hurrying forward. Southern Statesmen them- 
selves hardly cared for a settlement of the differences. It is 
pretty certain, that any proposition that could have been offered, 
short of complete surrender by the North, would have been 
unsatisfactory to them. Andrew Jackson, himself a Southern 
man, but of incorruptible honesty and unquestioned patriot- 
ism, had only declared, what his clear head distinctly saw, at 
the time of the nullification trouble, when he said, their object 
was, neither the tariff, nor slavery, but a Southern Confederacy. 
They might by tlieir action have defeated the adoption of the 
Clark Resolution, in the Senate. They might have adopted the 
Crittenden Propositions. But they refused to do either. They 
absented themselves purposely and, when present, refused to 
vote. Nor did they seem to care seriously what the North did. 
Their real leaders took little or no part. They were busy, how- 
ever, inflaming the minds of the people of the South, and in- 
citing them, to take the steps at home, that had already been 
resolved upon in Washington. 

Sumner was unwilling to yield to them, in anything. In a 
letter to Governor Andrew, on January eighteenth, 1861, he 
wrote : " The question must be met on the Constitution as it is 
and the facts as they are, or we shall hereafter hold our Govern- 
ment, subject to this asserted right of secession. Should we 
yield now, — and any offer is concession, — every Presidential 
election will be conducted, with menace of secession, by the 
defeated party." He held to this ground, notwithstanding 
every effort of the peace party, to move him. Under the great 
pressure that was being exerted, Charles Francis Adams, one 
of Sumner's most unswerving supporters, in the earlier work, 
for Freedom, and, who was now in Congress, had yielded and 
was offering propositions of compromise. Seward also had 
weakened and, in a speech in the Senate, which he had read 
over to Sumner before its delivery, and which Sumner un- 
successfully attempted to dissuade him from delivering, he 
receded from the high ground the Republicans had taken. 
When such men yielded, it showed the condition of the public 
mind and the pressure that was being exerted. 

But Sumner stood firm. He alone, of the whole Massachu- 
setts delegation, in Congress, refused to sign a recommendation, 
to the Governor of the State, asking the appointment of Com- 
missioners, to attend a Peace Conference, proposed by the Gen- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 405 

eral Assembly of Virginia. He declared, that any change in 
the attitude of firmness thus far maintained by the North, 
could have no other effect than the encouragement of treason. 
It was thought best, however, by the Governor, to appoint these 
Commissioners to prevent others in Washington from assuming 
to take their place and misrepresenting the loyal feeling of the 
State. All the Commissioners so appointed were firm against 
any concession to Slavery and so voted in the Conference. 

At the request of Governor Andrew, Sumner went to Pres- 
ident Buchanan to offer military aid, from the State to the Gov- 
ernment, in its peril. When he had finished his conference, 
upon this subject, and was about to retire, he asked the Presi- 
dent if there was anything else Massachusetts could do, for the 
good of the country. " Yes," said President Buchanan, " vote 
for the Crittenden Propositions." The President greatly 
desired their adoption, thinking this would bring peace to the 
country. But Sumner replied that, while Massachusetts had 
not yet spoken, he felt authorized to say, that such was the un- 
alterable conviction of her people, that they would see their 
State sunk in the sea, and turned into a sandbank, before they 
would adopt propositions, giving slavery constitutional protec- 
tion, in the Territories, and disfranchising a portion of her 
population. 

A Boston Committee, headed by Edward Everett, lately a 
candidate for Vice-President, came on to Washington, to urge 
an adjustment, by mutual surrenders. Everett called upon 
Sumner and urged him to bring forward some conciliatory 
proposition, saying he was the only person who could do it, with 
a chance of success. But Sumner replied that, if he was strong 
in the North, it was only because the people there were con- 
vinced he would not compromise, but the moment he com- 
promised, he too would be lost. 

Thus far, Sumner had refrained from speaking, believing 
firmness, with silence, to be the best course. But on February 
twelfth, Crittenden presented, in the Senate, a petition signed 
by the people of Massachusetts, reciting that their sentiments 
towards the Union and country, were being misrepresented and 
misunderstod, that they were willing all parts of the country 
should have equal rights and that they recognized in the Crit- 
tenden Propositions a basis of settlement, on which, both tlie 
North and the South, might unite and thus restore peace, to 
the country. The petition purported to come from one hun- 
dred and eighty-two towns and villages and cities of Massa- 
chusetts and to be signed by 22,313 citizens. Crittenden, in 
presenting it, remarked upon the number from Nantic, where 



406 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNEH 

Senator Wilson lived, and Boston, the home of Sumner, where 
there were more than 14,000 petitioners out of 19,000 voters. 
He moved that the petition be laid on the table, which cut o£E 
debate. But Sumner moved that it be printed, and, on this 
motion, spoke. 

He declared that the signers of the petition must have been 
ignorant of the character of the Crittenden Propositions, that 
these propositions went beyond the Breckinridge platform, 
which had been condemned by the people, in the election of 
Lincoln; and, if adopted, would set aside the Republican plat- 
form, on which that election was carried, and would foist, into 
the Constitution, provisions, which tlie framers of the instru- 
ment had never sanctioned, and to which they would never have 
consented, extending the protection of the Constitution itself, 
over slavery, south of latitude 36° 30', and carrying it to every 
future acquisition of territory there, while making freedom 
more impossible, at the North, with every incoming State pos- 
sessing the right to come in as a slave State, giving new guar- 
antees to slavery, in the National Capitol, facilitating the 
transportation of slaves from State to State, strengthening the 
Fugitive Slave Law and then, as if attempting to do something 
especially obnoxious to Massachusetts, proposing to despoil her 
colored citizens of political franchises they had enjoyed before 
the National Constitution was adopted, and had continued to 
enjoy ever since. While he had infinite respect for the right of 
petition, and hoped always to promote the interests and 
represent the wishes of his constituents, he unhesitatingly 
declared, that these petitioners had missed the opportunity of 
asking two things, altogether sufficient for this crisis, first, tliat 
the Constitution be preserved intact; second, that the verdict of 
the people, in the election of Lincoln, be enforced, without 
price or condition. He insisted there was but one thing for the 
North to do, and that was to stand firm. In answer to Crit- 
tenden's inquiry, why, if his propositions were not right, he 
did not move to amend them, Sumner answered that he had 
missed no opportunity, direct or indirect, from beginning to 
end, of voting against every word and every line of them, and 
that he had voted for Clark's substitute, which would have dis- 
placed them entirely, and that this substitute expressed his con- 
viction exactly. 

Called out by this speech, it was freely declared, by well-in- 
formed persons in Boston, some of them signers, tliat tlie peti- 
tion had been signed ignorantly by a great many. But the 
Common Council of Boston made haste to pass a formal resolu- 
tion, censuring Sumner, and declaring that his assertion in the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 407 

Senate, about the petitioners was "■ undignified, unbecoming a 
Senator, and a citizen of Boston, and untrue." Tlie Common 
Council was then controlled by the Compromisers. It after- 
wards appeared that the petition had been placed, at a public 
place, in the Boston post-office, in charge of a crier, who asked 
every one who passed to sign, that boys and foreigners, and 
such, as well as citizens, did sign thoughtlessly ; and that after- 
wards the city police canvassed the out of the way places, with 
it, getting everybody to sign it who would. 

An efl:'ort was also made, in the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
as in some of the other States, to procure a repeal of the Per- 
sonal Liberty Laws. These were laws, passed for the protection 
of free citizens, against abuses, growing up under the Fugitive 
Slave Law. One of 'the complaints of the South was that it was 
hindered in the recovery of its slaves, by these laws. An appeal 
to the Legislature, to make this concession to the South, was 
signed by a large number of prominent citizens of Boston, 
headed by Judge Shaw, until lately Chief Justice of the vState. 
Sumner firmly resisted any such concession and was in almost 
daily correspondence with Governor Andrew to prevent it. 
His letters, beseeching them not to make any such unseemly 
surrender to the South, were handed around among the mem- 
bers of the Legislature, and aided materially in preventing it. 

He wrote to Governor Andrew, January twenty-third : 
"Nothing, that Massachusetts can do now, can arrest one 
single State. There can be no other result, except our own 
humiliation, and a bad example, which will be felt by all other 
States. If Massachusetts yields one hair's breadth, other States 
may yield an inch or foot, a furlong, or a mile. Pray keep 
the Legislature firm. Don't let them undo anything ever done 
for Freedom." 

Sumner did not mistake the gravity of the situation. Prob- 
ably no man, in public life, had a clearer view of what was in 
store for us, than he. For years he had been in the midst of 
the conflict. He knew the temper of the South and its leaders ; 
and he could appreciate what they were about to do, and what 
the outcome of it would be. He made no efl^ort to conceal his 
convictions, or to mislead his friends. " We are on the eve of 
great events," he wrote William Claflin, Chairman of the Re- 
publican State Committee and President of the Senate of Mass- 
achusetts, " and this month will try men's souls. But our 
duty is as clear as noonday." The same month, January, 1861, 
he wrote Count Gurowski : " The slave States are mad. They 
will all move. Nothing now, but abject humiliation, on the 
part of the North can stay them. Nobody can foresee precisely 



408 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

all that is in the future, but I do not doubt that any conflict 
will precipitate the doom of Slavery. It will probably go down 
in blood." " My opinion," he wrote Governor Andrew, Jan- 
uary twenty-sixth, " has been fixed for a long time. All the 
slave States will go, except Delaware, and perhaps Maryland 
and Missouri, — to remain with us Free States." 

These opinions were constantly realized by events. Within 
two weeks after tlie opening of Congress and the appointment 
of the committee of thirteen and within two days after Critten- 
den offered in the Senate his propositions of Compromise, 
South Carolina, without waiting to see the result of either, on 
December twentieth, 1860, adopted an ordinance of secession 
and proceeded to raise the Palmetto Flag over the custom house 
and post-office at Charleston. Other States followed, in quick 
succession, Mississippi, January ninth, 1861 ; Florida, January 
tenth ; Alabama, January eleventh ; Georgia, January nine- 
teenth ; Louisiana, January twenty-sixth. Texas followed, 
February first. Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Ten- 
nessee were merely waiting and soon to follow. The seceding 
States were demanding the removal of the National troops from 
their territory and the surrender to them of the fortifications 
and custom houses and post-offices, within their borders. The 
Senators of the seceding States withdrew from the Senate, on 
January twenty-first. The President's Cabinet too was melting 
away, before Secession. Cobb, of Georgia, left the Treasury 
banlfrupt, December tenth ; Floyd, after transferring the mili- 
tary resources of the country to the forts of the South, and then 
withdrawing the National troops from them, left the War 
Department, December twenty-ninth ; Thompson, as disloyal 
as either of the others, left the Interior Department January 
eighth. No especial regret was felt by loyal people, when they 
left. It would have been better for the country if they had 
gone earlier. They were succeeded by three loyal men. Edwin 
M. Stanton, than whom America never produced a greater man, 
soon to become the War Secretary, John A. Dix and Joseph 
Holt, took their places; and thenceforward Buchanan, in the 
hands of better men, became a better President. 

But it was not the South alone that had gone off after the 
idol of Slavery. Southern men had many political friends, in 
the North, who had been associated with them, in conventions, 
and in public office, had voted with and sustained them, and 
were openly, with speech and pen, supporting them now ; such 
men, as Caleb Gushing, of Massachusetts, Horatio Seymour, of 
New York, and Clement L. Valandigham, of Ohio. They 
were working vigorously and openly, pointing to the destruc- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER J,09 

tion that threatened, and loudly calling on the North to yield. 
Living in the North and a part of it, themselves men of ability, 
they were more to be feared than their friends in the South. 
Their influence was felt. Even the timid and weak-kneed of 
the Eepublicans, whose votes had aided in the election of Lin- 
coln, were hesitating. The times were trying men of stronger 
fibre. 

I count it one of the great debts we owe Sumner that he, 
more than any other man, perhaps, of the whole country, with 
grim resolution, stood firm at this time and kept the Republi- 
cans true to the work they had undertaken. He continued abso- 
lutely loyal to his convictions, without any sign of weakness; 
one to whom all others could turn, with assurance, for en- 
couragement and advice. He saw the situation clearly him- 
self and he never wanted confidence in his own convictions. 
He felt that now was the hour of supreme peril, that to yield 
meant to give up all that had been gained and sink lower, than 
ever, in submission to the South. He felt, too, that the life 
of our institutions was staked on the issue, that the South, 
having been beaten at the polls, should accept the verdict of the 
people and abide the result, that any different course, on her 
part, was revolutionary and must, if persisted in, destroy our 
experiment in popular government. For the North to yield, 
was to encourage revolutionary tendencies. He had absolute 
confidence in the righteousness of his cause and that, if war 
came, victory must ultimately come out of it, to the right, with 
the complete destruction of slavery; and that with all cause 
for strife between the sections removed, the country would 
rise to a new height of prosperity and power, among the_ nations. 
All he then saw, with prophetic instinct, events have since jus- 
tified, and to him, and those who stood with him, a debt of 
gratitude is due. 

The withdrawal of the Southern Senators left the Eepub- 
licans with a majority in the Senate, and gave them the control 
in the organization of the committees. After the inauguration 
of Lincoln, they proceeded, on the eighth of March, 1861, to this 
work. Sumner was made Chairman of the Committee on For- 
eign Relations, one of the most important committees of the 
Senate, and for whose work he had an especial fitness, by reason 
of his early studies in international law and his extensive travel 
and acquaintance in Europe. This fitness was recognized by the 
press both at home and abroad, at the time, as a matter for 
congratulation. Mason, of Virginia, had held this chairman- 
ship, since December, 1851. Sumner had been a member of the 
Committee for two years, and was destined to preside over it 



410 LIFE OF CHARLES SUBINER 

until his removal, in 1871- There never was a period when 
graver questions came before the Committee, than during the 
years from 1861 to 1871, when Sumner was its Chairman. 
They were the years of the war and those immediately follow- 
ing it, when our relations with foreign nations were frequently 
strained, as with England, over the claims growing out of the 
depredations of the rebel cruiser Alabama, built and manned 
in Great Britain. Except for careful diplomacy war might 
have resulted. The first report the Committee made under his 
chairmanship, was in favor of the settlement of a disputed 
question by arbitration, a means of settling national differences 
he had advocated in his oration on The True Grandeur of 
Nations. The dispute was between this country and England 
over the boundary line between Vancouver's Island and the 
American Continent. 

The Senate continued in session, to act on the appointments 
of President Lincoln, till late in March. Sumner, according 
to his custom, remained in Washington a few days, after the 
close of the session. While he was still there, Fort Sumter was 
fired upon, and President Lincoln issued his call for seventy- 
five thousand men. On the afternoon of April eighteenth, 
Sumner left Washington for home, stopping that night at 
Baltimore. Here he narrowly escaped being mobbed. He put 
up at Barnum's Hotel, registering when he entered, in the 
open book. He took tea, however, and spent the evening at the 
home of some friends. As he was passing along the street, on 
his way to his friends, he was recognized, and the report being 
spread that he was in the city, a mob gathered and proceeded 
to the hotel and demanded to see him. But they were assured 
that he was not in the hotel, and that they did not know where 
he had gone. Leaving his friends, about nine o'clock, and 
walking leisurely back, when near tlie hotel, Sumner noticed an 
excited crowd in the street, but, being entirely ignorant of the 
cause, he turned into a side entrance of the hotel, thinking thus 
to avoid the press. Going to the clerk's counter to get his key, 
he was at once hurried into the private office of the proprietor 
and was there told, by Mr. Barnum, of his danger and asked, 
for the safety of himself as well as of the hotel, that he would 
leave the house. Sumner insisted that he must claim the 
rights of a guest, that no other hotel would be safer and that 
he could not think of bringing danger to the home of a friend. 
It was finally arranged that he miglit remain in the hotel, 
occupying one of the rooms, at the end of a long hall, in the 
third story, where all the rooms were of one size and where no 
one, but the proprietor and his confidant would know where he 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 411 

was. Here Sumner remained, for the night; and as he sat 
by the window he could see, all unknown to them, the surging 
of the angry crowd, who were looking and waiting for him. 
In tlie grey dawn of the following morning, he left the hotel 
and proceeded on his way to Philadelphia. The lady in whose 
family he had passed the previous evening, was notified, for 
her own safety, to leave the city, which she did, until the excite- 
ment subsided. 

On the road to Philadelphia, Sumner passed the Sixth Massa- 
chusetts regiment, on its way to Washington, in answer to the 
President's call for troops. They were being carried in horse 
cars. And in their laughter and singing and prevailing good 
humor, they revealed the easy, joyous side of soldier life. In a 
few hours, they were in Baltimore and then they encountered 
the other side. As they were being transported from the 
Philadelphia, to the Washington station, after part of them had 
reached the latter, the remainder en route were set upon, by 
a mob, the rails of the track were torn up and they were obliged 
to march through the city. They were pelted with stones and 
brick and other missiles and then came pistol shots ; when the 
soldiers turned and fired. And thus they fought their way for 
two miles, to the Washington station. Four of the soldiers 
were killed and thirty-six wounded. Some of the mob also 
fell. Thus was shed "the first blood of the Civil War. That 
night the bridges on the Philadelphia Railroad were burned, 
travel was cut off, over that thoroughfare, and the President 
was notified by the Mayor of Baltimore that no more troops 
could be transported through that city. When Sumner reached 
Philadelphia they were reading bulletins, telling of the disaster 
to the troops he had just passed, from his own State. That 
night these same troops were quartered in the Senate Chamber 
he had lately left, and so the scene of argument was transformed 
into one of arms. 

Events were fast hurrying upon one another. Both sides were 
marshalling armies, and every one now believed that war was 
inevitable. Sumner saw, in it, a great opportunity. He was as 
sure the South could not succeed, as he was that eternal prin- 
ciples of right ruled the world. He knew that slavery was the 
cause of all our trouble and he felt, that the destruction of 
slavery, would end the war. Slavery was wrong, and as it was 
the cause of the war, created and maintained it, he believed that 
the war thus created could not succeed. The only danger he 
saw, was, that the North would not place herself, in the right 
attitude. He felt, that she should squarely assert that she was 
against slavery, against its extension and believed it to be wrong. 



412 LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 

and that Southern Statesmen, becoming convinced of this, had 
persuaded their section to rebellion, to save slavery. He be- 
lieved the North should declare now, that the war having come, 
and for this cause, that slavery must be destroyed, in the Kepub- 
lic. She was not doing this. She was withholding any declara- 
tion, on the subject. She was holding on to slavery, in the bor- 
der States, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. She 
was holding on to the Southern States, and, apparently, under- 
taking to subjugate them. The South was asserting and ap- 
parently maintaining that her war was for independence, for 
liberty. So that the war was made to appear, as one for con- 
questj on the part of the North, and for independence, on the 
part of the South. 

Sumner felt that all this was wrong, that we could not suc- 
ceed, so long as we allowed the South to maintain such an atti- 
tude. The greatest naval power in the world_ was Great 
Britain. She would be against us upon such an issue, as the 
South was making. For our Nation had made war against 
her, upon this very issue, in our struggle for Independence. _ In 
this quarter, at any rate, the feeling towards us, as a Nation, 
was then none too' kind. France, too, was already committed 
upon this question, for she had aided us, in that struggle. 
Under Napoleon, she had since maintained a life and death 
struggle, of her own, upon this issue, first, when Napoleon 
emulating the Emperor Charlemagne, in the extent of his 
territories, had sought to unite all Western Europe, under the 
battle cry of freedom from kings and hereditary monarchs; 
and, second, when all Europe had, in turn, united against him, 
and swept away his conquests and his empire, and carried him 
off, to St. Helena. The whole continent of Europe had seen 
wars for conquest, until it was tired of them. We could expect 
no sympathy there, upon such an issue. Yet the South was 
seeking assistance there, in its struggle for independence, as it 
called it, and the result must be doubtful to us, if she obtained 
such aid. 

Upon the question of slavery, on the other hand, Europe 
was with the North. Great Britain had abolished it, in 1834. 
France in 1848; and the example of these nations was being 
followed, all over the Continent. It was everywhere being 
treated, as a relic of barbarism. Intelligent men united in 
condemning it and among them, no foreign country could hope 
to find sympathy, in a war waged in support of it- 

Sumner maintained, that our Nation should be set right, 
before the world. He could not agree, that the necessity of 
holding the border States, for the North, was a sufficient com- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 413 

pensation, for the loss of the goodwill of Europe. Everywhere 
the real cause of the War should be proclaimed and the issue 
asserted, in no unmeaning terms, that the success of the North 
meant the destruction of slavery ; while the success of the South 
meant the establishment of a new nation, with slavery, as the 
chief corner stone. 

Sumner early pressed this matter, upon the attention of 
President Lincoln. A day or two before the bombardment of 
Fort Sumter, the President told him of the determination to 
provision and hold the fort, resisting, by fire, an attempt to 
take it, if one was made by the rebels. " Then the war power 
will be in motion," answered Sumner, " and with it great 
consequences." Sumner was in Washington, in May, and the 
President invited him to take an evening drive, in his carriage. 
Troops were seen everywhere, about the City, for the purpose 
of guarding the Capitol. Fortifications were being constructed, 
supplies were being collected and everything suggested the 
coming conflict. Sumner brought up the subject of slavery and 
took occasion to tell the President, that, so far, he was in the 
right, in the course he had pursued towards it, but he must be 
ready to strike, when the time came. 

A special session of Congress was called to meet, July 4, 1861, 
to pass some measures, necessary for the war. Sumner, prompt 
in the discharge of his duty, was in Washington ten days, be- 
fore Congress opened. It continued in session, till the middle 
of August, doing a good deal of actual work, but consuming 
very little time, in discussion, the purpose being to confine 
themselves closely, to the work in hand. While it was in session, 
July 21, occurred the battle of Bull Run. On the day of the 
defeat of our army, Sumner was with the President twice, but 
made no mention of slavery. But, on the second day after the 
battle, he went to the President, for the express purpose of rec- 
ommending emancipation. It was late in the evening, and he 
found the President alone. Sumner opened the conversation, 
by saying he had come to make an important recommenda- 
tion about the conduct of the war. To which the President 
replied, that he was just thinking of that, and had something 
new on the subject. Sumner supposing that he referred to 
emancipation, said : " Then you are going against slavery ! " 
But the President replied, " Oh, no, not that." Sumner an- 
swered, he was sorry. When the President called his atten- 
tion to the conversation, on their ride together, in May, and 
asked Sumner, if he remembered it. " Certainly," said Sumner. 
" Did you not then say that you approved my course ? " asked 
the President. "Certainly," said Sumner, "but I also said 



414 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

that you must be ready to strike at slavery, and now the mo- 
ment has come." But the President did not agree with him. 
Sumner urged liis reasons, upon the President, and their con- 
versation continued, until midnight; but he was unable to con- 
vince him. Lincoln's primary object was to save the Union; 
Sumner's to destroy slavery. 

Sumner was impatient at the delay and resolved to go before 
the people and publicly urge the necessity and duty of emanci- 
])ation and create a sentiment, in its favor. During the fall, 
he was invited, by William Claflin, the Chairman of the 
Massachusetts State Republican Committee, to address the 
State Convention, which was to meet at Worcester, on Octo- 
ber first. Sumner replied, that he would not speak, except to 
urge the duty of immediate emancipation. Claflin urged him 
to speak, and on that subject, if he chose. Sumner prepared 
his speech, and at a subsequent call of Claflin, read to him a 
sketch of what he proposed to say, telling him that, if it did not 
meet his entire approval, to say so, and he would not appear ; 
but that he would say this, if he spoke at all. Claflin expressed 
his entire agreement and Sumner spoke. He was received by 
the Convention, with great enthusiasm and spoke for about 
an hour. This explanation is proper, because, in the heat of 
opposition, raised by the speech, it was claimed that he had 
thrust himself and his subject upon the Convention and that 
what he said was not favorably received. 

He said he had often appeared before the people, to urge the 
duty of emancipating the National Government, from the con- 
trol of slavery, and, that this had now been accomplished, first, 
by the people in the election of Lincoln and, second, by the cart- 
ridge box, when, in obedience to the command of the Presi- 
dent, Fort Sumter had refused to surrender and had re- 
turned the fire of the rebel artillery. It had often been said 
that the war would make an end of slavery, but it was surer 
still, that the overthrow of slavery would make an end of the 
war. The war must be brought to bear directly on slavery. 
When the slaves fled to our armies, they must be received as 
free. The higher law, under the Constitution, martial law, 
which is only a form of self-defence, should be invoked against 
slavery. Under this law, not only the President, but the Com- 
mander of the army, had power to order the emancipation of 
the slaves. 

" Two objects are before us. Union and Peace," he said, " each 
for the sake of the other, and both for the sake of the country; 
but without Emancipation how can we expect either ? " 

" Fellow-citizens, I have spoken frankly ; for such is always 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 415 

my habit. Never was there greater need of frankness. Let 
patriots understand each other and they cannot differ widely. 
All will unite in whatever is required by the sovereign exigen- 
cies of self-defence; which means that all will unite in sus- 
taining the National Government, and driving back the Rebels. 
But this cannot be by any half way measure, or lukewarm 
policy. There must he no hesitation. Hearken not to the 
voice of Slavery, no matter what its tone of persuasion. It 
is the gigantic Traitor and Parricide, — not for a moment to be 
trusted. Believe me its friendship is more deadly tlian its 
enmity. If you are wise, prudent, economical, conservative, 
practical, you will strike quick and hard, — strike, too, where 
the blow will be most felt — strike at the mainspring of the 
Eebellion." 

The address was received with frequent and long applause, — 
sometimes so great that the speaker was compelled to stop and 
wait, till quiet had been restored. No sign of dissent was 
shown during the delivery. But the applause must have 
come from those, in the Convention, who had been Free- 
soilers. The conservative or Whig element, in the Convention, 
though they made no sign of disapproval, during the speech, 
were against Sumner's recommendation. A resolution was 
introduced by James Freeman Clarke, proposing that all slaves, 
within the lines of our armies, be declared free and that their 
services be accepted, for the Union, and further, expressing 
the opinion, that slavery was the cause of the war and asking 
the Government to remove it. The resolution was laid upon 
the table, pending the transaction of other business, but, when 
a motion was made to take it from the table, another motion, 
to adjourn, was made and carried. And so the Convention 
adjourned, without a direct expression, on the resolution, being 
taken, but, with an indirect expression given, against it. 

Out of the Convention, the speech created a good deal of a 
sensation. It was the iirst declaration, by any one, in high 
authority, in favor of emancipation. True some of the extreme 
anti-slavery men had advocated it, but they had advocated a 
great many extravagant things; and sometimes their advocacy 
did not attract much attention. But it did attract attention 
when Sumner, openly and with earnestness advocated it, be- 
fore a political convention, of his own State. The speech was 
printed in the newspapers and was read widely and evoked 
much comment. The press of Boston, including the Repub- 
lican papers, all condemned it, as did the Springfield Repub- 
lican. Indeed, never once, in his career, did Sumner receive 
the cordial support of the newspapers of his home city. The 



^IQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

tone of their comment on tins occasion was in some instances 
unkind. One of them called him " one of the most irrepressible 
impracticables of the party," and added that " it is the position 
and antecedents of the Senator which alone shield him from 
the suspicion of being a proper person against whom a writ 
De lunatico inquirendo might be issued." Another called it an 
" unfortunate speech, which had certainly done as much as 
lay within the compass of one man's powers to inspire this sus- 
picion (that the abolition of slavery and not the Union was the 
object of the war,) to distract and weaken the loyal and by in- 
direction to aid the disloyal." While the Boston Post (Demo- 
cratic) in commenting on it, said "such men as Sumner, and 
his ilk, do not tight nor pay; they only brawl, and deserve to 
be treated as were old scolds in days past, — ducked in a horse 
pond," calling it again " the rodomontade of this classic fana- 
tic at the Worcester Convention." But outside of Boston, 
the Republican papers of Massachusetts generally approved the 
speech. The New York papers as well as the Pennsylvania ones 
were generally divided, according to politics, upon it. It was 
printed and commented on variously in England and France. 
His friends were as enthusiastic as his critics were bitter. 
The former took up the matter and to the threats of the latter 
that they would defeat his return to the Senate, at his next elec- 
tion, they predicted that his next election would be as nearly 
unanimous as the last. They thanked the papers that had 
assailed him, as simply revealing, in advance, their anxiety, 
for his retirement, and promised their own support. But this 
was hardly necessary; for within a year, the whole party were 
compelled, by the logic of events, to the same position, he had 
taken. The quotation, from Shakespeare's King Henry V, 
with which he prefaced this speech, was rising up, in warning, 
to the South. 

" Therefore take heed * * * " 
How you awake the sleeping sword of war : 
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed ! " 

From this time forward, Sumner lost no opportunity to urge 
emancipation, whether before the people, or in his place in the 
Senate, or with the President. He knew that the great pur- 
pose must be to convince the people. He never lost his faith, 
in them. If they once united, with him, tlie result was cer- 
tain; but, without them, it was doubtful, when success would 
come. To this task therefore he addressed himself, during the 
remainder of the recess, of Congress. 

He grasped the opportunity for the accomplishment of the 



il 



LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 417 

great purpose of his life, and resolutely pushed forward to 
success. He was not in politics for the sake of its honors and 
its pleasures. He had no thought of wasting his life there, 
enjoying the idle days. He had a distinct purpose, which it 
was the hope of his life to see accomplished, for the good of 
his country; and he kept steadily on, in pursuit of it. This is 
what distinguishes him from so many statesmen, bent only on 
the attainment of place and power for themselves. The conse- 
quences to himself, Sumner did not stop to estimate. With un- 
failing confidence in the justice of his cause, if he could only 
accomplish it, he was willing to rest his fame. And yet the 
people recognized his loftiness of purpose, as they always will, 
when real merit is at stake, and loyally kept him at his post. 
Daring always to do right, the sequel showed he was safe. 

To John Bright, the English statesman, he wrote : " The 
contest must go on: there is no thought of compromise or ar- 
rangement. And with its progress the slavery question becomes 
more prominent. Against war as I am, never could I wage 
a war for emancipation ; but with war forced upon us I accept 
emancipation as one of the agencies by which it may be brought 
to a close, and I see clearly that the war will then have a charac- 
ter which it now wants. If there are diflficulties in this step, 
there are greater difficulties without it." And again : " The 
South will fight like desperadoes, and I see no chance of clos- 
ing the war without striking at slavery. * * * Meanwhile the 
good people of England owe to us their good wishes. We are 
fighting the battle of civilization and their public men and 
newspapers should recognize and declare the true character of 
the conflict." 

Within three weeks after the Worcester Convention, where 
he proposed emancipation as a remedy for the hour, he pre- 
pared a lecture on the Uchdlion, its Origin and Mainspring. 
In this lecture he treated the history of the South in its rela- 
tion to the General Government, how it had haltingly con- 
curred in the Declaration of Independence and again in the 
adoption of the Constitution, how it had by threatening disun- 
ion gradually acquired and maintained for Slavery the suprem- 
acy and with what tyranny it had commanded obedience, how 
now by a lawful and constitutional triumph of Freedom, in the 
election of Lincoln, being deprived of its accustomed rule, it 
had raised the bloody hand of Eebellion and proposed by war 
to destroy the Republic. 

" But all must see," he said, — " and nobody will deny — that 
Slavery is the ruling idea of this Rebellion. It is Slavery that 
marshals these hosts and breathes into their embattled ranks 



418 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

its own barbarous fire. It is Slavery that stamps its character 
alike upon officers and men. It is Slavery that inspires all 
from the General to the trumpeter. It is Slavery that speaks 
in the word of command, and sounds in the mornino; drum- 
beat. It is Slavery that digs trenches and builds hostile forts. 
It is Slavery that pitches its wicked tents and stations its sen- 
tries over against the national capitol. It is Slavery that 
sharpens the bayonet and runs the bullet, — that points the 
cannon and scatters the shell, blazing, bursting with death. 
Wherever this Eebellion shows itself, whatever form it takes, 
whatever thing it does, whatever it meditates, it is moved by 
Slavery; nay, the Eebellion is Slavery itself, incarnate, living, 
acting, raging, robbing, murdering according to the essential 
law of its being-" 

" Such," he added, " is Slavery, that it cannot exist, unless 
it owns the Government. * * * The slave-masters of our 
country saw that they were dislodged from the National Govern- 
ment, and straightway they rebelled. The Eepublic, which they 
could no longer rule, they determined to ruin. And now the 
issue is joined. Slavery must either rule or die." 

He argued that the Union could be preserved only by the 
destruction of Slavery. He urged the people to strike where 
the blow would be felt and not miss the precious opportunity 
of destroying the monster evil, the source of all this strife, that 
military necessity required this in just self-defence. He knew 
the cavils that were urged against this remedy, but he trusted 
the people; for the heart of the people was right. He urged 
them to be aroused to the occasion. The only peril he feared 
was some new concession to Slavery. 

This address was delivered in Boston, first, and then, in 
several cities of Massachusetts, as well as in Providence, Al- 
bany and Philadelphia, always to full houses. Such was its 
popularity, that he was asked to repeat it, in Boston and Phil- 
adelphia ; and he did repeat it in the former place. It was 
last delivered in Cooper Institute, New York, on November 
twenty-seventh. The demand for it showed the interest of 
the plain people, in what he had to say, and the conversion of 
the masses to his opinions. 

The audience, in New York, was a brilliant one. Long before 
the hour for meeting, the immense hall was crowded. The 
evening was a stormy one, and still the number of ladies pres- 
ent was larger than ever before seen, in the city, on a similar 
occasion. Many distinguished men of New York and New 
Jersey occupied seats upon the platform. The New York 
Herald, though hostile in politics, and unfriendly to the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 419 

meeting, admitted, that never before had Cooper Institute held 
an audience of such general reputation and intelligence. 
When Sumner came forward he was met, by tumultuous ap- 
plause and cheers and waving of hats and handkerchiefs, and 
it was several minutes, before he could proceed, for the enthu- 
siasm, which his appearance excited. Frequently during the 
delivery of his lecture, he was similarly interrupted and at its 
close resolutions were adopted, declaring it to be the judg- 
ment of the meeting that the public sentiment of the Nortli 
was, in full sympathy with any practical scheme for the extir- 
pation of Slavery, and would accept that as the only consistent 
issue, in the contest then waged. They also conveyed to Sumner 
the thanks of the meeting, for his eloquent assertion of this 
principle. Thus what had been denied him, in Massachusetts, 
was, six weeks later, accorded him, in New York. 

At the opening of Congress Sumner renewed his efforts for 
emancipation in the Senate. The regular session commenced 
December second, 1861. Two days later, Sumner introduced 
in the Senate, a resolution that the Secretary of War be re- 
quested to furnish, to the Senate, copies of any general or- 
ders, in the Military Department of Missouri, relating to fugi- 
tive slaves. General Halleck, in command of that department, 
had issued an order directing that such persons should not be 
received, within his camps, or in the lines of his forces, when 
on the march, and, that any such slaves when found there be 
driven out of the lines. Sumner spoke on the resolution and 
characterized the order, as irrational and inhuman, authorizing 
the surrender of slaves, beyond any constitutional obligation. 
He insisted that such an order was disheartening, to the soldiers, 
and discreditable to the country, both at home and abroad. 

On December seventeenth, he followed tliis, with another 
resolution, that the Committee on Military affairs, of which his 
colleague, Wilson, was Chairman, be directed to consider the 
expediency of providing by additional legislation, that the Na- 
tional army be not employed, in the surrender of fugitive 
slaves. It appeared that General Stone who commanded the 
Union troops, at the disaster of Ball's Bluff, had required his 
men to surrender fugitive slaves. In his command, were 
troops from Massacluisetts, who had complained of this re- 
quirement. Governor Andrew liad requested Sumner to call 
attention of the War Department to it and ask that the out- 
rage be remedied. Some German troops, who had enlisted 
in Massachusetts, were also in Stone's army and were like- 
wise remonstrating. 

Evidence that the country was being aroused upon these ques- 



430 I^lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

tions came to Sumner, from various sources. On the day 
after the introduction of the first resolution, a letter from 
St. Ix)uis informed Sumner, that the very slaves given up, be- 
longed to Secessionists, in the Confederate army, and asked 
if it was not inhuman, for these poor people to l3e made out- 
laws, for no crime, save tliat they refused to join their masters, 
in the onslaught on the Government. Another writer from 
Missouri, in a letter which Sumner read to the Senate, when he 
offered the second resolution, said, that he had lived in Mis- 
souri twenty-four years and knew her people and had served 
them, in various offices, and that it was nonsense, to try to save 
Missouri to the Union and the institution of slavery also, that 
slavery should fall and Missouri be saved, that if the National 
armies would proclaim freedom to the slaves of Secessionists, 
the war would soon close. 

In accordance with his second resolution, a bill was reported 
by Senator Wilson's committee, but it gave way to another, 
from the House, prohibiting the employment of National troops, 
in the surrender of fugitive slaves. On March thirteenth, 
1862, this became a law. It was one step towards Sumner's 
desired goal, — emancipation. 

Sumner's outspoken advocacy of this measure, was often 
criticised, and sometimes, for peculiar reasons. Certain it is 
that whenever an opportunity presented to correct the attitude 
of the country, and to further his cherished object, he did not 
fail to embrace it. Two of his colleagues, in the Senate, had 
died, Bingham of Michigan and Baker of Oregon. Sumner 
took the opportunity, in commemorating both, to especially em- 
phasize their work against slavery and their stand for emanci- 
pation. He said that except while engaged in the public serv- 
ice, Bingham had all his life been a farmer. By successive 
promotions, he had been advanced to the State Legislature, 
Speaker of that body. Member of Congress, Governor of his 
State, and then Senator. But he belonged primarily to the vo- 
cation of the farmer, that does so much to strengthen both body 
and soul. Dependent upon Nature, the sun and the rain, the 
ever varying seasons, he had learned to' be independent of men. 
Though a Democrat, when he came to Washington, he had 
frankly accepted the situation and true to his instincts for free- 
dom had assumed the responsibilities of his position and had 
voted for the Wilmot proviso, forbidding slavery in any part of 
the territory proposed to be acquired from Mexico, at the close 
of the Mexican War, and, afterwards, had opposed the Fugitive 
Slave Bill. All this, Sumner recorded to his credit, and he 
added: 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 421 

" He set his face a^^ainst concession, in any degree, and in 
every form. The time had come when slavery was to be met, 
and he was ready. As tlie Eebellion assumed its warlike pro- 
portions, his perception of our duties was none the less clear. 
In his mind, slavery was not only the origin, but vital part of 
the Rebellion, and therefore to be attacked. Slavery was also 
the mainspring of the belligerent power now arrayed against 
the Union, — therefore in the name of the Union, to be de- 
stroyed. * * * Such a Senator can ill be spared at this hour. 
His cheerful confidence, his genuine courage, his practical in- 
stinct, his simple presence, would help the great events now 
preparing, nay, which are at hand. Happily he survives in a 
noble example, and speaks even from the tomb." 

He said that Baker's career had been somewhat different. He 
was born, in England, of poor parents, and his earliest recol- 
lection M-as of the magnificent pageant, attending the funeral 
of Lord Nelson, wounded in the naval battle of Trafalgar, 
where his own, annihilated the French fleet, he dying three 
hours later, when the day was won. Thus was Baker early 
taught love of country. He was brought, as a child, to Phila- 
delphia. While still a boy, he had worked, in the factories, at 
the loom, and later had removed to Illinois. His early career 
was one of struggle, with adversity, but having reached the bar, 
his engaging ways and rare endowments as an orator had quickly 
carried him into Congress. Later he commanded a regiment 
with signal ability, in the Mexican War. Disappointed at not 
receiving a seat in the Cabinet of General Taylor, and consider- 
ing his political career closed, in Illinois, he had hurried with 
the tide of emigration, to the Pacific coast, where his ability, as 
an orator, was quickly recognized and, a little later, he reap- 
peared in Washington, as a Senator from Oregon. In a funeral 
oration over Broderick, Senator from California, killed by Terry 
the Chief Justice of that State, in a duel, growing out of politi- 
cal discussions, over slavery, in the heated campaign of 1859, 
Baker had so wrought up the feelings of his audience that 
violence was feared. On the breaking out of the Rebellion, he 
had enlisted in the army and was made Colonel of his regiment 
and, being stationed near Washington, he had sustained the 
dual relation of Soldier and Senator. 

Coming into the Senate one day, in the full uniform of a 
Colonel, he had laid his sword upon his desk, and sat listening 
to John C. Breckenridge, lately 'the Democratic candidate for 
President, opposing the measures of the Government, for the 
preservation of the Union. Baker at once replied and the pas- 
sions of his impulsive nature being aroused, branding his ad- 



422 I^ii^'E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

versary's words as " polished treason even in the very Capitol 
of the Eepublic," infusing the fire of his own spirit into liis 
audience, he created a scene never to be forgotten. 

" Wliat would have been thought," he demanded, " if in 
another Capitol, in a yet more martial age, a Senator, with the 
Koman purple flowing from his shoulders, had risen in his 
place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and 
declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage 
should be dealt with on terms of peace? What would have 
been thought, if after the battle of Cannae, a Senator had de- 
nounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of 
its treasure, every appeal to the old recollections and the old 
glories ? " " He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian 
Rock," interrupted Fessenden, in an undertone, who sat near 
him. And Baker catching up the answer and turning it against 
his adversary, thundered on, in his indictment of Breckenridge. 

Breckenridge had not caught the voice of Fessenden and, 
thinking it was Sumner who had suggested the Tarpeian Rock, 
in his reply, made a coarse onslaught on Sumner. Sumner 
looked surprised but, accustomed to the abuse of the South, 
said nothing. 

Breckenridge and Baker had come to the parting of the ways. 
The brilliant Southerner of long and distinguished ancestry, in 
Kentucky, was expelled from the Senate at its next session, 
characterized, in the resolution of expulsion, by Baker's epithet, 
" John C. Breckenridge, the traitor," and destined never to 
reappear, in his country's service. But his more brilliant an- 
tagonist, Baker, the poor boy, continued with increasing loyalty, 
in the service of his adopted country. At the head of his 
brigade, at Ball's Bluff, he fell dead, pierced by nine balls, the 
brain that had swayed listening multitudes shattered and the 
bosom, that had beat to so many generous impulses, riddled. 
His eulogies were pronounced in the Senate, in the presence of 
the Chief Magistrate and his Secretaries, and a multitude, 
gathered to pay him honor, at the very session of Congress that 
his antagonist was expelled. 

It was an occasion that appealed strongly to Sumner; and, 
always happy, in tributes to his deceased colleagues, he was then 
at his best. The encounter at Ball's Bluff was a signal disaster, 
to our arms, and there was a strong disposition, to hold some 
one responsible for it. The brilliant life, suddenly snatched 
away in the midst of an honorable career, in the place where 
the waves of excitement ran highest, over a question that was 
rending the nation, aroused intense feeling and called out bit- 
ter expressions. But, through it all, Sumner saw the evil, that 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 433 

caused it and the remedy. Grief would be unavailing, he 
thought, that did not point them out. Therefore, after pictur- 
ing these leading events, in Baker's eventful life, he pointed 
the whole lesson, with this significant plea for emancipation. 

" But the question is painfully asked. Who was author of 
this tragedy, now filling the Senate Chamber, as already it has 
filled the country, with mourning ? There is a strong desire to 
hold some body responsible, where so many perished, so un- 
profitably. But we need not appoint committees, or study testi- 
mony, to know precisely who took this precious life. That great 
criminal is easily detected, — still erect and defiant, without 
concealment or disguise. The guns, the balls and the men that 
fired them are of little importance. It is the power behind all, 
saying, * The State, it is I,' that took this precious life; and 
this power is Slavery. The nine balls that slew our departed 
brother came from Slavery. Every gaping wound of his slashed 
bosom testifies against Slavery. Every drop of his generous 
blood cries out from the ground against Slavery. The brain so 
rudely shattered has its own voice and. the tongue, so suddenly 
silenced in death speaks now, in more than living eloquence. 
To hold others responsible, is to hold the dwarf agent and dis- 
miss the giant principal. Nor shall we do great service, if 
merely criticising some local blunder, we leave untouched that 
fatal forbearance through which the weakness of the Eebellion 
is changed into strength, and the strength of our armies is 
changed into weakness." 

*' May our grief to-day be no hollow pageant, nor expend 
itself in this funeral pomp ! It must become a motive and im- 
pulse to patriot action. But patriotism itself, that command- 
ing charity, embracing so many other charities, is only a name, 
and nothing else, unless we resolve calmly, plainly, solemnly, 
that Slavery, the barbarous enemy of our country, the irreconcil- 
able foe of our Union, the violator of our Constitution, the dis- 
turber of our peace, the vampire of our national life, sucking its 
best blood, the assassin of our children and the murderer of our 
dead Senator, shall be struck down." 

These tributes of Sumner to his dead colleagues were crit- 
icised at the time for the passages I have quoted. One news- 
paper of New York, in an abusive article, declared that, " Even 
in the burial services of the dead he mingles his sectional hate 
and personal wrath " and that he ought to be sent home to 
Boston to be imprisoned in Fort Warren with Mason and Sli- 
dell, all enemies alike of the Government and the Union. But 
Sumner thought otherwise. " It is my nature," he once said, 
" to be more touched, by the kindness of friends, than by the 



424 J-'l^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

malignity of enemies; and I know something of both." He 
knew his dead colleagues, Bingham and Baker, and the les- 
son of their lives and its value to their country, at this time. 
He could justify all he had said of them and these Congres- 
sional eulogies published in pamphlet form were sent broadcast 
over the country and were eagerly read by patriotic people. 

Such work for emancipation was making itself felt, in 
the country. During the early years of the war, there was an 
effort made by the Government to keep the border States from 
joining the Eebellion. They were slave states and it was feared 
that the adoption of radical anti-slavery measures would drive 
them out of the Union. President Lincoln, feeling the re- 
sponsibility of his position, and knowing that his administra- 
ton was new and untried, and that it had been entered upon 
under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, was anxious to gain 
the confidence of the country and to keep these border States. 
There could be no doubt that he felt, as to the cause of the war, 
much as Sumner did. Three years before, in his debate with 
Douglas, he had declared, " I believe this Government cannot 
endure permanently, half slave and half free." And he had 
then made the prediction that it would eventually become " all 
one thing or all the otlier." He had never retracted these 
opinions, then deliberately expressed. But liis position was 
different from Sumner's, who had been in the Senate for ten 
years, and was well-known in public life; and his habits of 
thought were essentially different. He watched the public pulse 
more carefully; he reasoned out his conclusions more cau- 
tiously. He was slow in reaching his conclusions ; and he had 
to reach them himself, no one could be said to control him. 
But his conclusions, when reached, were safe. Sumner while 
chafing at the delay of emancipation, knew him and trusted 
him always. And, to the credit of both, it may be said, no 
other President, during Sumner's whole public career, so much 
appreciated and trusted him as Lincoln. 

Lincoln heard Sumner's plea for emancipation patiently and 
considered his arguments, but was slow to express himself, not 
agreeing that the time was ripe or that the people were pre- 
pared for it. But before the end of December, 1861, Lincoln 
privately confessed to Sumner that he was ahead of him only a 
month or six weeks. A majority of his cabinet then favored 
emancipation. The change was beginning to show itself, in 
the army orders, and a different attitude, towards fugitive 
slaves, who reached the Union ranks. The time was ripening 
fast for the consummation, so long hoped for, by Sumner. But 
it was not destined to be reached in six weeks. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE TRENT AFFAIR — SUMNER URGES RELEASE OF MASON AND 

SEIDELL HIS SPEECH — HIS APPEARANCE AND POSITION — 

EMANCIPATION, ADVOCATED BY SUMNER — OTHER QUES- 
TIONS 

The i^orts of the South were now in a state of blockade and 
the National Government was making every effort to cut off the 
Confederacy from communication with the world. At the same 
time the South was bending every energy to maintain her as- 
serted position as an independent nation. She had appointed 
James M. Mason, of Virginia, Commissioner and Envoy to Eng- 
land, and John Slidell, of Louisiana, in the same capacity to 
France. They had succeeded in running the blockade, some 
time in October, 1861, and had reached Havana, in Cuba, with 
their two secretaries, their baggage and dispatches. It became 
generally known that they were in Havana, and what their mis- 
sion was. They were to act as agents of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, in procuring loans of money and armed intervention, 
as well as the recognition of the Confederacy and, generally, 
obstruct the United States, in their dealings with those powers. 
Having reached Havana, they were anxious to proceed on their 
missions, but the National Government was equally anxious to 
prevent them. They were still far from their accredited gov- 
ernments, but they relied on the vessels of some neutral power, 
to carry them. They had taken passage, in the English mail 
and passenger vessel Trent, on their way to St. Thomas, where 
that vessel turned her passengers over to a transatlantic ship. 
While near Nassau, on November eighth, but on the open sea, 
their vessel, the Trent, was overhauled by the San Jacinto, 
commanded by Captain Wilkes. He acted without instructions. 
The Trent was searched and Mason and Slidell, with their 
secretaries were transferred to the United States vessel and 
carried into Boston harbor, where they were confined in Fort 
Warren. 

The affair excited various comments. The first feeling was 
one of congratulation, that two enemies of their country, en- 
gaged in acts of rebellion, had been apprehended. But then the 
question arose whether the taking of men, not soldiers, from a 
425 



426 J^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

neutral vessel, upon the open sea, could be justified, under the 
law of nations. The question was also asked what effect the act 
would have upon Great Britain, with whom our Government 
was anxious to be on good terms? The first feeling of exulta- 
tion gave way to one of doubt and questioning. So great a 
lawyer as Caleb Gushing, once nominated by the President, for 
Chief Justice, maintained that the seizure was right; Chief 
Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, Theophilus Parsons, the 
head of the Harvard Law School, and Edward Everett, who had 
filled such offices as Minister to England and Secretary of 
State, also justified the act of Captain Wilkes. Other men of 
eminence, as well as, generally, the press of the country, took 
the same view. Congress meeting soon after, one of the first 
acts of the House was to adopt a resolution, thanking Captain 
Wilkes " for his brave, adroit and patriotic conduct " in the 
arrest. But Sumner, as soon as he heard of it, said the arrest 
Avas wrong and we would have to give the prisoners up, that 
it was in direct violation of the principle for which we had con- 
tended with Great Britain in the War of 1812. He admitted 
the precedents of the English courts were the other way and 
liad probably misled some who took the different view. 

The British Government was not long in making known what 
it thought of the arrest. The information reached England on 
November twenty-seventh, and three days later, instructions 
were dispatched to the English Minister, at Washington, direct- 
ing him to demand the liberation of the four men and the 
delivery of them to the British Government, with a suitable 
apology. In a private letter, accompanying the dispatch, the 
Minister was instructed that, in case this demand was not com- 
plied with in seven days, he should break up his legation and 
leave Washington, The contents of these dispatches were com- 
municated to our Government, on December nineteenth. In 
the meantime troops were ordered by Great Britain to Canada, 
the militia of that colony was drilled and the dockyards of Eng- 
land resounded with the din of workmen, fitting up her vessels 
for sea. All this meant war, in case her demand was refused, 
the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and aid, in every 
way, to the Rebellion. \\Tiile all this was taking place, our 
Government was straining every nerve to suppress an uprising 
in the first flush of victory encouraged by the surrender of Fort 
Sumter and the successes at Ball's Bluff and Bull Run. Lin- 
coln shook his head gravely and, to hot-headed advisers, signifi- 
cantly answered, " One war at a time, gentlemen." 

Sumner shared Lincoln's fears. He was in Washington be- 
fore the session of Congress opened and, a§ soon as he arrived. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 427. 

he went to the President and Secretary of State, to counsel 
caution and advise against the adoption of the act of Wilkes. 
He showed letters to the President and afterwards read them to 
the Cabinet, received by him from the English statesmen, 
Bright and Cobden, showing their pacific feeling towards the 
the North and their familiarity with the true cause of the war. 
In answer to Sumner's inquiry about the feeling of the Admin- 
istration towards England growing out of the Trent case, 
Lincoln said to him, " There will be no war, unless England is 
bent upon having one." This assurance Sumner conveyed to 
Bright, in a letter, strongly deprecating the attitude of the 
Britisli Government and expressing a hope that pacific counsels 
would yet prevail. When the matter came up in the Senate, 
Sumner, anticipating an angry discussion and expressions of 
hostility towards England, that would add fuel to the flame, 
sought to have it referred to his committee, but to avoid dissen- 
tion waived this and allowed it to go to a different one. 

On December twenty-sixth, the last day in the limit set by 
the British Government, for the surrender of the men, the 
Secretary of State notified the English Minister, they would be 
surrendered. There was a good deal of bitterness felt towards 
England, for the peremptory manner in which the demand was 
made. Instead of making complaint, and seeking by prelimi- 
nary negotiations, to obtain a peaceful surrender of the men 
and omitting the peremptory alternative of surrender or war, 
till these o^her means had been exhausted, a peremptory 
course was adopted, at the start. Indeed the English Govern- 
ment anticipated that such an event was likely to happen, for 
it took the opinion of its legal advisers upon the question of its 
rights, before Mason and Slidell were arrested. In the dis- 
patch demanding the surrender, the British Government said 
it was willing to believe that Captain Wilkes was not acting 
under instructions, when he took them. And information that 
this was the case, and further that the United States Govern- 
ment would not complicate the situation by adopting the act 
hastily, was promptly conveyed to England, by instructions to 
the American Minister, at London. Why, then, was this 
peremptory course adopted, by the English Government, if it 
was willing to believe we did not intend the act? Why was it 
persisted in, and our pacific intentions not made public, in 
England, after they were communicated, to that government? 
These were questions often asked, in the United States, and 
unanswered, except by the assertion that the English Govern- 
ment desired war. 

Naturally, these things provoked bitter comment. The 



428 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

delivery up of the men, by our government added to the bitter- 
ness. Commenting on England's conduct, in the House, on 
January seventh, one speaker declared : " She is treasuring up 
to herself wrath against tlie day of wrath. She has excited 
in the hearts of this people a deep and bitter sense of wrong, of 
injui-y inflicted, at a moment when we could not respond. It 
is night with us now ; but through the watches of the night, 
even, we shall be girding ourselves to strike the blow of right- 
eous retribution." Another, Vallandigham, of Ohio, destined 
to a course of singular bitterness towards the North, in her 
efforts to suppress the Eebellion, declared that " for the first 
time, in our national history, have we strutted insolently into a 
quarrel, without right, and then basely crept out of it, without 
honor." 

When these things were said, the men had been delivered up, 
but the position of the Administration was being misrepresented 
and misunderstood, at a time when it needed friends. It was 
important that the situation be understood, both at home and 
abroad. Sumner had privately urged the Administration to 
take the step it did ; he was the chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Eelations, the most important officer in the country, in 
such a crisis, except the President and his Secretary of State ; 
and above all he was well-versed in international law. The task 
therefore naturally fell to him. Two days after these bitter 
expressions, in the House, he spoke in the Senate. 

It being announced that he was to speak, at an early hour, 
the galleries of the Senate began to fill, and, by the time he 
commenced, notwithstanding the fog, the rain and the mud of 
the wretched morning, tliey were crowded. The ladies' gallery 
was filled. The wife of Vice-President Hamlin, with a party 
of her friends occupied seats, in the diplomatic gallery, which 
was also crowded. General Fremont was there and prominent 
Abolitionists. Every important foreign minister, in Washing- 
ton, except only Lord Lyons, the English Minister, whom eti- 
quette kept away ; and members of the Cabinet, Chase and Cam- 
eron, occupied seats on the floor of the Senate. The Senators 
themselves, generally so careless of each other's speeches, were 
willing to hear him, upon this subject, and listened with at- 
tention. 

The speech was impressively delivered, so kind and so calm, 
in rebuke, and yet convincing. His argument was strictly a 
legal one. He lifted the case out of the narrow limits, to which 
it had been confined, by others, that the arrest was wrong, 
because the Trent, as well as the prisoners, had not been brought 
into a port where the case could be adjudicated upon, by a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 429 

prize court, a position which was untenable; because if the 
seizure was wrong, it could not be made right, by increasing the 
extent of the seizure. Sumner placed it upon the broad ground 
that a neutral ship could not be stopped, on the high seas, where 
there was no court to adjudicate upon the rights of the parties 
and there be subjected to a search, and, if persons, not soldiers, 
were found, they be taken, by force, into the custody of a bellig- 
erent and carried away. Such a law would make all ships and 
their cargoes on the high seas, perhaps thousands of miles from 
land, subject to the jurisdiction of a lieutenant, upon the 
quarter-deck. It would subject neutral ships to insufferable 
annoyance and innocent men to infinite hazard. If a right 
to the custody of such persons was claimed, it should be asserted 
in port, within the jurisdiction of some court, where, without 
inconvenience, and with little expense, the question could be 
adjudicated. He insisted that enemies, unless soldiers, in 
actual service, could not be taken out of a neutral ship, that 
such persons as Mason and Slidell were not contraband of war, 
so as to affect the voyage of a neutral with illegality. 

He summarized his own position thus : " If I am correct, in 
this review, then the conclusion is inevitable. The seizure of 
the Eebel emissaries, on board a neutral ship, cannot be justi- 
fied, according to declared American principles and practice. 
There is no single point, where the seizure is not questionable, 
unless we invoke British precedents and practice, which, be- 
yond doubt, led Captain Wilkes into his mistake. * * * Ho 
was mistaken. There was a better example ; it was the constant, 
uniform, unhesitating practice of his own country, on the ocean, 
conceding always the greatest immunities to neutral ships, 
unless sailing to blockaded ports, refusing to consider dis- 
patches as contraband of war, refusing to consider persons, 
other than soldiers and officers, as contraband of war, and pro- 
testing always, against an adjudication of personal rights, by 
summary judgment of the quarter-deck." 

The United States had taken this position, almost at the 
beginning of her history, he insisted, and had consistently fol- 
lowed it, ever since. He quoted numerous of her treaties, to 
prove this. On the other hand, Great Britain had denied it 
and this had been the chief cause of the War of 1812. There 
were precedents, in the reports of cases, tried in her courts, of 
that kind. Following these, many of the writers, who justi- 
fied the act of Captain Wilkes, as well as Captain Wilkes him- 
self, had been mistaken. England had refused to recognize our 
position, even at the close of the War of 1812; but now, at 
last, by actual experience, she had been compelled to come to 



430 J^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

it. The tables were turned. By the act of Captain Wilkes we 
were put in the position England had held, and which we could 
not maintain, without violence to all our own precedents; while 
England, when brought to experience the wrong, she had in- 
flicted, upon us, thousands of times, prior to 1812, had been 
compelled, by a sense of right, to turn her back, upon her own 
principle and acknowledge we were right. So that, while the 
Administration had given up " two old men," of insignificant 
importance, we gained the acquiescence of England to an im- 
mortal principle of international law. Truly the victories of 
peace had become greater than those of war! 

This speech elevated Sumner, in the estimation of the coun- 
try. By such efforts, where slavery was hardly mentioned and 
where, in a closely reasoned discourse, upon an important prin- 
ciple of international law, he furnished a classic upon the sub- 
ject discussed, he taught men that he was not a mere agitator, 
but a broad-minded statesman, equipped for every requirement 
of his position. 

Sumner had now become the most prominent figure in the 
Senate. His seat was most inquired for, by strangers visit- 
ing Washington, and when it was announced that he was to 
speak, the chamber and tlie galleries were filled. His stalwart 
frame six feet, three inches tall, towered, by his desk, on the 
outer circle. His deep, resonant voice, filling with distinctness 
every nook and corner of the chamber, fell easily upon the ear 
of any listener. His speeches, carefully prepared, in advance, 
as great orations for some great occasions, seldom fell short or 
disappointed the expectation of his audience. His motions, 
were vigorous, and yet graceful, and there was a charm and an 
impressiveness, in his manner, and a depth of conviction, in his 
words, which added to his wealth of learning and his rhetoric, 
made a lasting impression. No one could question his sincerity 
or his earnestness. 

His position was already somewhat historic. The cause for 
which he had so long stood, in public life, as the chief repre- 
sentative, was now the reigning one, in Washington. When he 
first entered the Senate, ten years before, there were only two of 
his political belief. Chase of Ohio and Hale of New Hampshire. 
He was then denied a place, on any of the committees of the 
Senate, as being " outside of any healthy political organization." 
Now, he was the Chairman of the principal committee of that 
body, and his party held the Presidency and both Houses of 
Congress. In all the intervening years, that had brought these 
changes about, he had stood manfully for his convictions, with- 
out fear and without compromise. He had aided to bring these 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 43I 

changes, by years of toil and abuse and suffering. To the great 
public who had watched his co-urse, he sustained something of 
the character of a living martyr, for a triumphant cause. To 
few mortals, is it given, to occupy such a place. Oftenest, like 
Lincoln, they are in their grave, before the day of triumph. To 
Sumner it brought added labor and responsibility. 

There has seldom been a more laborious session of Congress, 
than the first regular session, after th-is election of Lincoln. 
The qualification of members of Congress, was called in ques- 
tion, as never before. The Rebellion had introduced new re- 
lations. Some of the Senators as Jefferson Davis, Toombs and 
Mason had voluntarily abandoned their seats, some, as Breckin- 
ridge, had been expelled, without ceremony, still others held 
to their places and, when questioned, insisted upon their quali- 
fication. Among the last, was Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana. A 
resolution for his expulsion was offered, in the Senate, by Wil- 
kinson of Minnesota. The charge against him was, that he had 
written a letter, addressed to " His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, 
President of the Confederacy of States," introducing one 
Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas, adding, " He visits your capital, 
mainly to dispose of what he regards a great improvement, in 
fire-arms. T commend him to your favorable consideration " 
etc. Bright disclaimed any recollection of having written the 
letter, but admitted that if Lincoln said he did, it was probably 
correct. Lincoln had not reached Davis, with the letter, but 
when arrested had given it up, and so it had appeared against 
Bright. Sumner insisted that this was treason and advocated 
his expulsion and he was expelled. The Judgment seems a harsh 
one, looking at it, in our calmer times. It was such a letter 
as, inadvertently, might have been given, in the early days of 
the Rebellion, by a public official, to a friend, seeking an intro- 
duction, to one, with whom the writer had lately served, in the 
Senate. 

General Lane of Kansas had been elected to the Senate but 
before he had taken his seat, President Lincoln had designated 
him as Brigadier-General of volunteers, and he had entered up- 
on his duties as such, without any formal commission or ap- 
pointment, from the United States Government. Afterwards, 
upon being informed, that he could not hold both positions, he 
abandoned his place, in the Army, and qualified as Senator. 
Meantime the Governor of Kansas, assuming that he had 
vacated his right to a seat, in the Senate, appointed Frederic 
P. Stanton. Sumner spoke in favor of Lane, and insisted that 
he had not been a Senator, when he served under the Presi- 
dent's designation, for he had not qualified. He was only a 



433 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Senator elect. Nor, he insisted, was he, in the language of the 
Constitution, " holding any office under the United States," 
when in the military service, for he had been a Brigadier Gen- 
eral under a commission from his State, like Colonel Baker, the 
President not then having the authority to make the appoint- 
ment, the law authorizing it, not having been passed. The out- 
come of the contest was that Lane was seated, though the Judi- 
ciary Committee of the- Senate had reported against his right. 

The position, of the States in rebellion, early became one of 
perplexity. On the eleventh of February, 186*^ Sumner intro- 
duced, in the Senate, a series of resolutions, intended to fix the 
relation of these States to the National Government. The reso- 
lutions declared that the Ordinances of Secession adopted by 
these States were void, but, if sustained by force, became an 
abdication of all their rights, so that the territory of the States 
in rebellion came under the jurisdiction of Congress, just as 
the Territories were ; in other words, that State rebellion was 
State suicide, that every act of the men, in rebellion, was 
utterly lawless, that the termination of the State, terminated 
all local institutions created by the State; and that slavery, be- 
ing thus created, fell with the State; that it was the duty of 
Congress to see that slavery in these States ceased to exist, in 
fact, as it already had censed to exist, in law; that a recogni- 
tion of slavery, by a civil or military official of the United 
States, would be giving aid to the Rebellion and would besides 
be a reduction to slavery of persons that, by act of the State, had 
been made free; that it was the duty of the National Govern- 
ment, to protect those formerly held as slaves, in the freedom 
they had thus acquired; that Congress should also assume 
complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory and proceed to 
establish there republican forms of government. When the 
resolutions had been read, Sumner moved that they be laid on 
the table and be printed, adding that he hoped, at some future 
day, to call them up, for consideration. Others sought to have 
them referred to a committee, hoping thus to be rid of them 
permanently. Sumner's motion prevailed, though the wish 
to avoid a discussion of the questions thus presented had prob- 
ably more to do with the result, than anything else. 

These resolutions created a sensation. The doctrine that 
State rebellion was State suicide and reduced the rebellious 
State to the condition of one of the Territories, was startling, 
to many of Sumner's political associates. Leading Republican 
members of the Senate made haste to disclaim any party re- 
sponsibility, for the doctrines of the resolutions. They ad- 
mitted Sumner's right to introduce them, as he might any other 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 433 

measure he pleased, but they insisted, in their speeches, com- 
menting on them, that tlie party was not to be held responsible 
for what was merely his individual act or opinion. The resolu- 
tions were, indeed, far in advance of the public opinion of that 
time. There was still a disposition to hold on to slavery, and, 
especially, not to disturb the property rights of loyal slave- 
holders. Davis of Kentucky, two days after the introduction 
of these resolutions, introduced counter ones enforcing this 
idea of protection to loyal slaveholders. They were also ordered 
to be laid upon the table and printed. After some discus- 
sion, however, the whole matter dropped out of sight and 
eventually disappeared. Sumner prepared a speech, for delivery 
in the Senate defending his position, but an opportunity not 
presenting, the material was used, in an article published in the 
Atlantic Monthly in October, 1863. His object was to destroy 
slavery, but this was accomplished a few months later by the 
Proclamation of Emancipation, by President Lincoln. 

Yet these resolutions, introduced, in February, 1862, by 
Sumner, show his foresight and illustrate how, so often, he 
strode ahead of his colleagues. The very Republican Senators 
who disowned these resolutions in 1862, accepted the doctrine 
of State suicide, in 1867, when demanding colored suffrage, as 
ordained by Congress, as a condition of reconstruction, in the 
States, that had been in rebellion. Doolittle of Wisconsin, on 
the latter occasion, unwilling to go with others, declared that 
more than twenty Republican Senators, who had stood with 
him, advocating reconstruction upon the white basis, in 1862, 
had in 1867 gone over to Sumner's side and advocated his 
theory of reconstruction upon the basis of negro suffrage. 
Fessenden, himself one of the ablest men who ever sat in the 
Senate, completely changed his opinion. In 1862, discussing 
Sumner's resolutions he said: " I dissent entirely from the con- 
clusions of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, as 
stated in his resolutions." In 1866, he declared that these 
States, " having by this treasonable withdrawal from Congress, 
and by flagrant rebellion and war, forfeited all civil and polit- 
ical rights and privileges under the Federal Constitution, can 
only be restored thereto by the permission and authority of that 
constitutional power, against which they rebelled, and by 
which they were subdued." 

Hendricks, the Democratic leader of the Senate, afterwards 
Vice-President, twitting his Republican colleagues one day, 
upon this change of opinion said : " the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts steps out boldly, declares his doctrine, and then he is 
approached, and finally he governs. * * * He was told some- 



434 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

what sneeringly, two years ago, that among his party friends 
he stood alone ; and to-day they all stand upon his position/' 

But such men as John Jay, Charles A. Dana and Park Ben- 
jamin of New York, out of politics, hut of ahility and inde- 
pendence of thought, distinctly approved Sumner's resolutions. 
On March sixth, 1862, a public meeting was called at Cooper's 
Institute, New York City. The call for it asked the presence 
of all who concurred in the conviction^ that the traitorous 
power, calling itself The Confederate States, instead of achiev- 
ing the destruction of the Nation had thereby only destroyed 
slavery and that it was the duty of the National Government 
to provide against its restoration. Carl Schurz was among the 
speakers. Letters were read from Sumner, Preston King, 
Henry Wilson, David Wilmot and George W. Julian. Pesolu- 
tions, in harmony with those offered by Sumner, in the Sen- 
ate, were adopted and forwarded by the Secretary to Sumner, 
with the request that he present them to the President and to 
Congress. The German Republican Central Committee of the 
city and county of New York also passed a resolution indors- 
ing Sumner's position. 

On the very day of this meeting, the President communicated 
to Congress a scheme for compensated emancipation. This was 
his first official step towards emancipation. This means was 
soon found to be impracticable, on a large scale. 

When Sumner arrived in Washington at the beginning of the 
session, he had gone to the President, to press the matter of 
emancipation. He found the President willing to talk about 
it, but still unwilling to take decisive steps. The President 
read to him a draft of his annual message to Congress ; and 
Sumner was disappointed at not finding in it a recommenda- 
tion on this subject. He was still more disappointed to learn, 
from the President himself, that he had stricken out of Secre- 
tary Cameron's report a reference to this subject. Cameron 
was in favor of it, as were also Chase and Stanton of the 
Cabinet. But Sumner easily saw that Lincoln's heart was right 
and that he was working it out, in his own way. Not a week 
passed without Sumner seeing the President once, or oftener, 
and pressing the matter upon him. At length, on the morning 
of March sixth, the President sent for Sumner to come to him, 
as soon as convenient after breakfast. When Sumner reached 
the White House, the President told him he had something to 
read to him and produced his special message to Congress, rec- 
ommending compensated emancipation. It was not Sumner's 
way to deal gradually with a wrong, and he so argued with the 
President: but he admitted that this recommendation was a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 435 

step in the right direction. Sumner took the Message and 
while reading it criticised certain passages and upon the sug- 
gestion of the President undertook to change the wording of 
one. After working at it a little while, he was interrupted, by 
the President proposing to strike the whole of the passage out. 
Sumner continued to study the paper, when Lincoln playfully 
interrupted him, with the remark, " Enough, you must go now 
or the boys " (referring to his private secretaries, Nicolay and 
Ilay), "won't have time to copy it". And so Sumner left, 
the President assuring him, he would communicate it to Con- 
gress that day. 

The Message, recommending compensated emancipation was 
accordingly communicated to Congress. But nothing was ever 
done under it, except the adoption, by both Houses, of a resolu- 
tion recommending that the Government ought to co-operate 
with any State which may adopt gradual abolition of Slavery, 
giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by it, in bringing 
about this change. 

But the Message did more good than this. It paved the 
way for the Proclamation of Emancipation, which the President 
issued a few months later. And it materially aided in the 
scheme of compensated emancipation, in the District of Colum- 
bia, then pending in Congress. At the beginning of this ses- 
sion, Sumner's colleague, Wilson, had introduced a bill provid- 
ing for emancipation in the District and creating a commission 
to appraise the claims on account of slaves thus liberated, limit- 
ing the allowance in the aggregate, to an amount equal to three 
hundred dollars a slave, and appropriating a million dollars to 
pay loyal owners, for the slaves thus liberated. There was ad- 
ded to it an appropriation, to aid such slaves as wished to emi- 
grate to Haiti or Liberia. Sumner spoke at length, on this bill, 
on March 31, 1863, advocating its passage by the Senate. He 
did not like the compensation feature. He was unwilling to 
recognize the title of the master, implied in compensation. He 
therefore refused, in speaking of it, to call it " compensation " 
but preferred the term " ransom ", paid for the slave and for 
his benefit and as his right, after years of unrequited toil, 
rather than as a compensation to the master for a right sur- 
rendered. He upheld it as a duty, on the part of the country, 
for its complicity in maintaining, so long, slavery, in a place, 
exclusively under the national jurisdiction. He recognized it 
also as the gentlest, quietest and surest way in which the change 
could be accomplished and therefore the most practicable. 

The bill passed the Senate on April third and the House on 
April eleventh ; but it was not approved by the President until 



436 ^IF^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

April sixteenth. In the meantime, there was some question, as 
to the cause of this delay of the President. Sumner, anxious 
lest it should fail, sought him and urged him to approve it. 
In the course of their conversation, Sumner said to him: " Do 
you know who, at this moment, is the largest slsiveholder, in 
this country? It is Abraham Lincoln; for he holds all the 
three thousand slaves of the District, which is more than any 
other person in the country holds." 

As the first practical act of emancipation, it was hailed with 
delight by the colored people, who had so long waited for some 
definite action of this kind. Fred Douglass, who had endured 
the lash of the master upon his back, made haste to express his 
gratitude to Sumner, 

" I trust I am not dreaming," he wrote, " but the events tak- 
ing place seem like a dream. If slavery is really dead in the 
District of Columbia, and merely waiting for the ceremony of 
* Dust to Dust ' by the President, to you more than to any 
other American statesman belongs the honor of this great 
triumph of justice, liberty and sound policy. I rejoice for my 
freed brothers, — and. Sir, I rejoice for you. You have lived to 
strike down in Washington the power that lifted the bludgeon 
against your own free voice. I take nothing from the good and 
brave men who have co-operated with you. There is, or ought 
to be a head to everybody ; and whether you will it or not, the 
slaveholder and the slave look to you as the best embodiment 
of the anti-slavery idea now in the councils of the nation." 

While the bill ' was before the Senate, Sumner moved an 
amendment to it. The bill provided that the Commission 
created to appraise the claims on account of slaves liberated 
should have power to subpoena witnesses and compel their at- 
tendance before it, as in civil cases before courts of justice. 
Sumner's amendment provided that in so doing there should 
be no exclusion of any witness on account of color. The old 
Maryland statute that was still in force in the District, did not 
permit colored persons to testify in any case, where a white man 
was a party. This amendment removed the disability of colored 
persons, before this commission. The amendment was agreed 
to and became part of the law. It was the first movement for 
the civil rights of the colored people. But it only applied to 
proceedings under this one act. A little later, on July seventh, 
when the Senate had under consideration a supplementary bill, 
on emancipation in the District, Sumner moved an amendment 
to it, that in all judicial proceedings in the District there 
should be no exclusion of any witness on account of color. This 
amendment also was carried and became a law. Thus in the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 437 

District of Columbia was removed forever, the disability of 
colored persons as witnesses and thus ended the outrage, as 
Thaddeus Stevens called it of not allowing any man of credit, 
whether white or black, to be a witness. 

Sumner aided, at this session of Congress, in removing 
another discrimination by the National Government, against 
the colored race. The republics of Haiti and Liberia, com- 
posed of colored people, with governments modeled upon our 
own, and Liberia largely colonized by people of our own, had 
thus far never been recognized by us. This fact could only 
be explained by the prejudice towards the colored race, on 
the part of the slave-owners who had so long dominated the 
National Government. While other nations received and sent 
ambassadors to them, ours did not. The failure of our govern- 
ment to recognize them was commented upon, by President Lin- 
coln, in his annual message and he recommended an appropria- 
tion for maintaining a charge d'affaires near each of them. 
Sumner moved the reference of this part of the message to the 
Committee on Foreign Relations and having called for all the 
documents and the files of the Senate on the subject, he soon 
thereafter reported, from the Committee, a bill authorizing the 
President to appoint diplomatic representatives, to both Re- 
publics and in a speech setting out the natural advantages of 
the countries and their importance to our commerce, he urged 
the passage of the bill. 

It was opposed by the Senators from the slave States, not in 
rebellion. They gave the same reasons for their opposition, 
that had previously been given, by their brethren of the slave 
States, whenever the subject had been before Congress. 

Saulsbury, of Delaware, admitting that the bill would now 
pass, added : " I predict that, in twelve months, some negro 
will walk upon the floor of the Senate of the United States and 
carry his family into that gallery, which is set apart for foreign 
ministers. If that is agreeable to the taste and feeling of the 
people of this country, it is not to mine ; and I only say that I 
will not be responsible for any such act." 

Davis, of Kentucky, was disgusted with the subject of sla- 
very in the Senate Chamber and was opposed to this bill for the 
reason that if we sent ambassadors to Haiti and Liberia, they 
would send their ministers to our country, and our President 
would be obliged to receive them, on an equality, with the 
representatives from other powers. A full blooded negro from 
them would have to be received by us, on the same equality as 
a white representative from a white people. When the Pres- 
ident entertained the wives and daughters of the white ambas- 



43S LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 

sadors, he would have to entertain, with them, the black wives 
and daughters of these colored representatives. This, Davis 
could not endure. He recalled an illustration. When the re- 
fined French court admitted the representative of Soulonque, 
" who then denominated himself, or was called, the Emperor of 
Dominica, I think," said Davis. 

" Of Haiti," interrupted Sumner. 

" Well," replied Davis, " a great big negro fellow, dressed out 
with his silver or gold lace clothes, in the most fantastic and 
gaudy style, presented himself in the court of Louis Napoleon, 
and, I admit, was received. N"ow, Sir, I want no such exhibi- 
tion as that in our capital and in our Government. The 
American minister, Mr. Mason, was present on that occasion, 
and he was sleeved by some Englishman — I have forgotten 
his name — who was present, who pointed him to the ambas- 
sador of Soulonque, and said, ' What do you think of him ? ' 
Mr. Mason turned round and said, ' I think, clothes and all, 
he is worth a thousand dollars.' " 

Notwithstanding such objections, however, the bill passed 
both Houses of Congress and became a law. 

Another step was taken at this session of Congress for the 
protection of the colored race and the destruction of slavery. 
Notwithstanding the slave trade had been abolished by statute 
and declared to be piracy, so long ago as 1820 by the United 
States, and, by England, in 1807, yet owing to the inefficient 
manner in which these laws were executed, negroes were still 
captured, in Africa, and brought to America and sold into 
slavery. No conviction under the United States statute was 
had, until 1862, when Nathaniel Gordon, master of a vessel, 
called the Erie, was convicted and hanged, in New York. Early 
in the spring of that year, Sumner had a conference with Sec- 
retary Seward, on the subject. As a consequence, negotiations 
were opened with the British Minister and a treaty was soon 
made, with Great Britain, for a restricted right of search, of 
vessels supposed to be engaged in the trade, and for the crea- 
tion of mixed courts for the condemnation and destruction of 
the ships found to be engaged in the business, leaving the slave- 
trader himself to be tried in the home courts of the captor. 
Sumner moved the ratification of the treaty in the Senate, on 
the twenty-second of April, and spoke in favor of it. The 
treaty was imanimously ratified. When Sumner carried the 
news to Secretary Seward, late in the afternoon, he found him 
reclining upon a sofa, in his private office. ''^ Where," said he, 
rising in astonishment, "were the Democrats?" In a subse- 
quent bill, reported by Sumner from his Committee, a judge 



&i 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 439 

and arbitrator for the mixed courts to be held respectively at 
New York, Sierra Leone and at Cape of Good Hope, were pro- 
vided for and thus the trade became almost impossible. The 
terror of the law, with such provisions in it, was sufficient to 
destroy the traffic and eight years later the courts, being without 
business, were abolished. 

Two subjects pressed themselves upon the attention of Con- 
gress at this session, — first, the punishment of the men in re- 
bellion; second, the provision of means to sustain the war. 
These two classes of bills were known as the Confiscation Bills 
and the Revenue Bills. While not of the permanent interest 
of some others, they were matters that could not escape imme- 
diate attention. They naturally awakened a good deal of 
interest. 

From early in the session until the last day, July seventeenth, 
the consideration of the Confiscation Bills was, in some form 
almost constantly before the Senate. A majority of the Sena- 
tors agreed that such a bill should be passed. They agreed too 
that slavery being responsible for the war, it should be made 
to feel the punishment and that the natural way to do this was 
in the emancipation of slaves. The differences were in mat- 
ters of detail and they took a great part of the time of the 
session in their discussion though not destined to prove of 
permanent importance. 

A bill introduced by Sumner provided that all persons in 
rebellion or who aided it or gave to those engaged in it aid or 
comfort, forfeited all claims to their slaves, who thereby be- 
came free. If the master of any fugitive slave claimed him, 
it would be a defence to his claim to show that the master had 
engaged in or aided the Rebellion. Loyalty had to be proven 
as one of the elements of title to the slave. On the other hand, 
the bill whicb became a law by the President's approval on the 
last day of the session, provided that only the slaves who had 
escaped from Rebel masters and had come within the lines of 
the Union army or under the control of the United States gov- 
ernment should be free. The difference between the two bills 
was that Sumner's was broader than the bill that became a 
law. By his bill all slaves of all rebels, wherever they were, 
were free. By the law passed only such of these slaves, as es- 
caped to the lines of the United States government, became 
free. Little difference did it make after the publication of the 
President's Proclamation of Emancipation two months later, 
which bill became a law. For by the preliminary proclamation 
of September twenty-second, freedom was promised to all 
slaves within the States, the people whereof should be in re- 



440 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

bellion on January first, foUowinf^. So that not only did all 
the slaves of Rebels, but all the slaves of loyal owners, then 
come to the promise of freedom soon to be consummated. The 
proclamation of the President was much wider than either 
of the bills. 

Some members of the Senate doubted the power of Congress 
to interfere with slavery. They argued that it was a local in- 
stitution created and maintained by the laws of the States 
wherein it existed and that only those States had power over 
it. They insisted that Congress could only punish the offenders 
in rebellion as other criminals are punished, according to law; 
that such a bill as this was an ex post facto law, and that like 
a bill of attainder, it inflicted punishment, without conviction 
by due process of law, all of which was forbidden by the Con- 
stitution. 

Sumner scouted such arguments. He felt impatient at the 
course of such debate, standing face to face with enemies strik- 
ing at the life of the Republic and yet in dealing with them 
to be subjected to all the embarrassments of criminal proceed- 
ings. " People," he said, " talked flippantly of the gallows as 
the certain doom of the Rebels. This is a mistake. For weal 
or woe, the gallows is out of the question. It is not possible as 
a punishment for this rebellion." He insisted that we were in 
the midst of rebellion as well as in the midst of war and that 
as a consequence we had a right to treat the offenders as crimi- 
nals or as public enemies and to choose for ourselves whichever 
method of punishment we preferred ; that the power to do this 
was ample, allowed both by the Constitution and the laws of 
war. He showed that confiscation had always been an instru- 
ment of government both in punishment for crime and in war. 
After reviewing foreign examples of ancient and modern times, 
he collected the statutes, eighty-eight in number, which had 
been passed by the colonies, punishing, by confiscation of prop- 
erty, the Tories, who had adhered to the King of England, dur- 
ing the Revolutionary War. He arranged them under the heads 
of the respective colonies so as to show tliat the Southern people 
themselves as well as the ISTorthern did not hesitate during the 
Revolutionary War to employ all the acknowledged rights of 
war against their fellow citizens who were acting as public ene- 
mies. He showed also that the Commissioners Adams, Franklin 
and Jay, refused, in the negotiations with England for the 
acknowledgment of National Independence, to either restore the 
property thus confiscated or to pay for it. 

Closing his speech, on this subject, on the nineteenth of May, 
1862, Sumner said : " God, in His beneficence, offers to na- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 441 

tions, as to individuals, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, 
which, of all things, is most to be desired. Never before, in 
history, has he offered such as is ours here. Do not fail to 
seize it. * * * If you seek Indemnity for the Past and Security 
for the Future, if you seek the national unity under the Con- 
stitution of the United States here is the way. Strike down 
the leaders of the Rebellion, and lift up the slaves." 

Little profit as there seemed to be, on first impression, in all 
this discussion, to secure the passage of a bill, that was soon to 
be supplanted, by the wider proclamation of the President, still 
I am not disposed to think the discussion was as fruitless as it 
appeared. We must remember that slavery was the cause of 
the war and, in the light of all the past, we could hope for no 
permanent peace, without its destruction. But emancipation 
was not practicable, at the beginning of the war. The country 
was not prepared for it. Aggressive anti-slavery men, like 
Sumner, were thoroughly convinced of its necessity. But the 
South was a unit against it, and half of the North was of the 
same way of thinking. It remained for the North to be edu- 
cated upon this question. More than any other means to this 
end was the long discussion of the question, in Congress, during 
this session. From Washington, it widened out, through the 
press and public discussion, until a great change, in public senti- 
ment, was wrought. Sumner spoke, earnestly and often, dur- 
ing the session, upon the question, but his principal speech was 
delivered, on May nineteenth. This speech was republished, 
under the title of' " Rights of Sovereignty and Rights of War," 
by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York City, and 
gained a considerable circulation. He spoke again, on the 
question, June twenty-seventh, and his speech this time was 
published, at length, in the New York Independent. In pref- 
acing it the Independent declared it to be "the most com- 
plete presentation of the question, that could be found, within 
the same compass, and, like all Mr. Sumner's speeches, dis- 
tinguished for accuracy of statement, learning and sound prin- 
ciple." 

Sumner's labors for emancipation at this session had been 
herculean. He was as thoroughly convinced, as could be, that 
the long hoped-for "opportunity" had arrived and, for the 
good of the country, as well as humanity, should not be al- 
lowed to escape unembraced. Of course his persistency, in 
pressing emancipation, was resented, by the few pro-slavery 
members, remaining in the Senate. They felt that the colored 
people were occupving too much of the attention of Congress. 

Garrett Davis of Kentucky, one day, when Sumner was seekr 



442 I^lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ing the amendment of a bill, relating to the judiciary, so as to 
forbid the exclusion of witnesses, in the United States courts, 
on account of color, rather petulantly remarked : "I do not 
think, Mr. I'resident, there was any need for sticking the per- 
petual, the all-pervading, the every-where-to-be-found, the ever- 
in-the-way negro to this bill. I hope and trust that the Senate 
and the Congress of the United States will be allowed to ma- 
ture and perfect some new bills, in which the interests and the 
business of the white men are involved, without having this 
ever-present negro stuck upon them, by the Senator from Mass- 
achusetts. If he desires to bring up this matter of the negro, 
in connection with the rules of proceeding in the Federal courts, 
let him introduce a distinct bill, and not make everything 
odoriferous of his friend." 

The amendment was rejected. But Sumner renewed his mo- 
tion, in the form of a proviso. The Senate adjourned and the 
bill was never taken up again. But a few days later, the Senate 
having under consideration another bill, Sumner offered his 
amendment again. It was rejected again. But Sumner re- 
newed it, at the next session ; and finally it passed. 

This, in brief, was the history of this bill, but not of this bill 
alone. It was the history of many of the measures, that Sum- 
ner advocated. They oftentimes did not triumph, when he first 
presented and first advocated them. But his persistency in 
a good cause, has been seldom equalled. If defeated once, 
he only renewed the struggle again, in a different form, and, if 
ncessary, again, and again. His persistency was one of the 
marked traits of his character. 

But often, his thorough investigation of a question, led to its 
prompt determination. This was illustrated, on more than 
one occasion at this session. On the seventh of July, a bill 
was before the Senate, to establish provisional governments for 
the States in rebellion. This was reported to the Senate with 
certain amendments, one of which recognized the laws of the 
State before rebellion, and provided for their continued en- 
forcements, under the new government. Sumner opposed this 
amendment, recognizing these laws. He read, from the statutes 
of North Carolina, one, which provided, that any free person 
teaching a slave to read or write, or giving a slave a book or 
pamphlet should, if white, be fined, not more than two hun- 
dred dollars, or imprisoned and, if colored, should be fined, or 
imprisoned, or wliipped; another statute, forbidding a slave to 
teach another slave or free negro, to read or write ; another for- 
bidding a person to circulate or publish in the State anything 
calculated to cause slaves to be dissatisfied with their condi- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 443 

tion or stir them up to conspiracies or insurrections, under 
penalty of imprisonment, for a year, for the first olfence, and 
of death, for the second; another, forbidding a free negro to 
preach, in public, or officiate, at a prayer-meeting, where slaves 
of different families are collected, under penalty of receiving 
thirty-nine lashes on his bare back. The bill was allowed to 
drop, one of the members of the committee, who had united in 
reporting it, declaring that he himself was against it and would 
never vote for a law that sanctioned the punishment of a man 
" for teaching another to read the word of God." 

With like ease, by a visit to the President, and a call for docu- 
ments, by resolution, in the Senate, Sumner stopped the pro- 
visional Governor of North Carolina, from closing up the col- 
ored schools of that State, under laws in force prior to rebel- 
lion. The sweeping order of the War Department, to the 
Governor, directed the enforcement of these laws. The teacher 
of one of the schools thus closed, came on to Washington, and 
presented the matter to Sumner and asked his interference to 
stop such proceedings. Sumner at once sought the President, 
at the White House, and, not finding him there, followed him 
to the War Department. Upon Sumner making known to him 
the purpose of his visit, the President asked him, with some 
impatience ; " Do you take me for a School Committeeman ? " 
" Not at all," answered Sumner, " I take you for the President 
and I come to you with a grievance that George Washington 
would have added to his renown, in correcting." The President 
stopped and heard him patiently and the matter was corrected. 
Sumner, in relating it afterwards, said this was the only time 
he was ever treated impatiently by Lincoln. 

Other things of grave importance were pressing upon the 
President, in his still new and untried position. A large army 
was already in the field and the expenses of the Government 
were multiplying with fearful rapidity. The conduct of the 
war was absorbing the interest as well as the energy of the 
Administration. It is not difficult to realize that smaller mat- 
ters, of detail, that had to come to the President's attention, at 
times, seemed more than he could bear. 

The revenue bills received Sumner's careful consideration. 
Sumner voted steadily in favor of the proposition, much dis- 
cussed and often before the Senate at this session, to make 
Treasury notes a legal tender, in payment of all dues, public 
and private, except for interest on bonds. In effect, it amounted 
to a forced loan to the Government. He spoke at length, in 
the Senate, in its favor. Others argued against its constitu- 
tionality, but he insisted that the Constitution expressly gave 



444 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to Congress the power to issue bills of credit and that this 
grant, of necessity, carried with it the power to make them a 
legal tender. He showed that, in times of exigency, such bills 
had been issued by Great Britain and the Colonies. But, while 
granting the power and admitting the necessity for the exercise 
of it, on the present exigency of the country, he warned Con- 
gress against the dangers of an irredeemable paper currency. 

In the consideration of the Internal Tax Bill, Sumner moved 
an amendment for a tax of Ten Dollars on each slave owned, to 
be paid by his master. It was argued that such a tax would 
give sanction to property in man; but Sumner answered that 
slavery was an intolerable nuisance entrenched in State lines, 
that we would not treat it otherwise than as a nuisance when 
we taxed it. In taxing it we did not assume its rightfulness, 
but its existence. Taxation instead of being an encouragement 
of it would discourage it. But out of tenderness, to the slave- 
owners, in 'the border states, not in rebellion, Sumner's motion 
failed. 

Sumner opposed a tax upon cotton. In the first consideration 
of the bill, he procured the tax of a cent a pound on it to be 
stricken out. But when the bill as thus amended went back 
to the House this tax was inserted again and when returned 
to the Senate, he procured it to be reduced to one half cent a 
pound. He felt such tax was unjust to the South, agricultural 
products of the North not being taxed ; and likewise that it 
l)ore hard upon the manufacturers of cotton goods. Sumner 
also opposed an increase of the tax upon books imported into 
the country, as being a tax upon knowledge. 

In the consideration of such measures the session of Congress 
wore away. It closed on July seventeenth, 18G2. It had been 
an unusual one, — unusual for the new and unheard of questions 
it was called upon to dispose of, and unusual, as well, for the 
character of the work it accomplished. Sumner said of it on 
June twenty-seventh : 

" The present Congi-ess has already done much beyond any 
other Congress in our history. Measures which for long years 
seemed unattainable only to the most sanguine hope, have 
triumphed. Emancipation in the national Capitol ; freedom 
in all the national Territories; the offer of ransom to help 
emancipation in the States; the recognition of Haiti and Li- 
beria ; the treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the 
slave-trade : the prohibition of the return of fugitive slaves by 
military officers; homesteads for actual settlers on the public 
lands; a Pacific railroad; endowment of agricultural colleges 
out of the public lands ; such are some of the achievements by 



J 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 445 

which the present Congress is already historic. There have been 
victories of war, won on hard-fought fields, but none comparable 
to the victories of peace. Besides these measures of unmixed 
beneficence, the present Congress has created an immense army 
and a considerable navy, and has provided the means for all 
our gigantic expenditures by a tax which in itself is an epoch." 
When it was drawing to its close, Sumner declared he had not 
been out of his seat a half hour since the session began. But 
when the motion was made, fixing the time of adjournment, he 
spoke against it. He was tired, as well as the others, and wished 
to be away, but he could not agree to go and leave so much 
important business undisposed of. The admission of West 
A^irginia, as a separate State, was pressing ; Congress was called 
upon to provide provisional governments for the States in rebel- 
lion ; and above all the Army Bill required prompt attention. 
This and Executive business should be finished, he thought, 
before the adjournment. But the majority voted otherwise. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1862 — SUMNER's THIRD ELECTION TO THE 
SENATE — SESSION 1862-3 — ADVOCATES ENLISTMENT OF 
COLORED TROOPS — COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION IN MIS- 
SOURI 

The sands of Sumner's second term were fast running out. 
The election of members of the State Legislature, who were to 
make a choice of his successor, was to take place in November, 
1862. For the only time after he entered the Senate, an or- 
ganized effort was made, to defeat him. It had been in prog- 
ress for a year. It first made its appearance, on the occasion 
already alluded to, when Sumner, in 1861, made his speech, 
before the State Eepublican Convention of Massachusetts, ad- 
vocating emancipation, as our best weapon, against rebellion. 
The charge persistently made against him was, that he was too 
extreme, in his advocacy of the rights of the colored people, 
that he was aggravating the situation of the nation and pro- 
longing the war, by goading the slave-owners into more des- 
perate elforts to destroy the Union. It was charged that he was 
second only to Jefferson Davis, in the work of destruction of the 
Union and his defeat was urged as necessary, if the country 
was to be saved. It was said, that the last session of Congress 
had been consumed with measures, for the relief of colored 
people, while the rights of our white citizens were neglected. 
This opposition to Sumner served the jDurpose of arousing 
his friends to activity. No man perhaps ever lived, in Mass- 
achusetts, who had so many friends, among intelligent men, of 
all classes. Among them were such people as editors of country 
newspapers, teachers and ministers, the members of the old 
abolition parties, scholars and writers, who cared nothing for 
office, for themselves. Many of them had been associated with 
him, in the early anti-slavery days, and had ever since kept pace 
with the work ; others had been converted to these views by later 
events; most of them had followed his course, in the Senate, 
with interest and many of them had been readers of his 
speeches. Such men made a powerful following for any states- 
man, when they were once thoroughly aroused. Events now 
happening were sufficient to awaken a watchfulness, in every 
lover of iiis country. It was a time of intense interest, even 
446 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 447 

bitterness, of political opinions. These friends were not willing 
to see Sumner defeated, without an effort. The attempt to do 
this aroused, to activity, an element hardly known to exist, in 
its intensity, till the occasion for it appeared. 

A fight had also been made, early in the summer, to defeat 
the renomination of John A. Andrew for Governor, on much 
the same ground as had been taken against Sumner. The Re- 
publican State Convention met at Worcester, on September 
tenth. Andrew was renominated, by acclamation. J. Q. A. 
Griffin of Charlestown introduced two resolutions, one pro- 
posing the extermination of slavery and another approving the 
course of the two Senators and " commending Sumner to the 
suffrages of his fellow citizens, whom he had served so well, 
that the Commonwealth might again honor itself, by returning 
to duty, at the Capitol, a statesman, a scholar, a patriot, and a 
man, of whom any republic, in any age, might be proud." 
These were strong words of indorsement. Certainly too strong 
to suit the taste of men, who were prepared to compass his 
defeat. Griffin had been chosen to lead the Sumner forces, on 
the floor of the convention. He was a young man, thirty-six 
years of age, but of rare ability to catch the current of a popu- 
lar convention and to lead its deliberations, — an able speaker 
and an enthusiastic worker. The opposition to Sumner was 
led, by E. H. Dana, Jr., then United States District Attorney, 
whose appointment Sumner had furthered and, with whose 
family, he had always sustained relations of friendship. Dana 
moved as a substitute a resolution simply indorsing the course 
of the Administration in tlie prosecution of the war ; and sup- 
ported his substitute, by a speech deprecating the anticipation 
of the work of the Legislature, whose duty it was to choose 
Sumner's successor. Griffin followed him, in a trenchant speech, 
in which Dana was roughly used. Others followed, in the same 
vein. Griffin's resolutions were referred to a committee, where 
Dana again opposed them. But the committee reported them, 
to the convention. Here a motion to amend, by striking out 
the indorsement of Sumner, was made. But it was voted down ; 
and then the resolutions as reported by the committee indorsing 
Sumner were unanimously adopted. With this, the effort, 
within the party, to defeat Sumner ended. 

But as Horace Greeley expressed it, the bitterness, with which 
Sumner was hated, insisted on having the gratification of a can- 
vass, even though a hopeless one and, " since there was no exist- 
ing party, by which this could be attempted, without manifest 
futility, one was organized for the purpose." The two distinct 
issues presented, by the resolutions, were, the extermination of 



448 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

slavery, and the re-election of Sumner. The party, comraitted 
to the re-election of Sumner, was of necessity committed to the 
extermination of slavery. Sumner, more than a year before, 
had committed himself to emancipation and had now by hard 
fighting brought his party, in the State, up to the same position 
and both were now firmly committed, by the platform. IMas- 
sachusetts never receded from it. In the last months of his 
life, looking back over his career, meditating on life and its 
hardships and the inconstancy of men, Sumner consoled him- 
self, with this thought ; " There is one satisfaction which can- 
not be taken from me," he wrote. " I have tried to do my duty 
and to advance humanity, keeping Massachusetts foremost in 
what is just and magnanimous. When I am dead this will not 
be denied." And could he not have uttered that sentiment at 
the close of this Republican Convention ? Only twelve months 
before he had pleaded earnestly, before these Republicans, for 
emancipation, as the best weapon. But in vain ! The Con- 
vention would adopt no such resolution. Sumner went to the 
people with his plea and labored on and he convinced them. 
Now the Convention had advanced to his position and in- 
dorsed it and indorsed him. But the Nation had not yet ad- 
vanced that far. He was " keeping Massachusetts foremost." 

The Democratic party had fared so badly, in the recent elec- 
tions in Massachusetts, that opposition by it would be a con- 
fession of defeat. It was hoped elements could be induced to 
join a new organization, that could not be induced to join the 
Democrats and that, all the opposition being united, there would 
be a hope of success. The movers were opposed to emancipa- 
tion, but they were much more opposed to the re-election of 
Sumner ; and it was the latter they especially wished to defeat. 
The various elements of opposition to Sumner and emancipa- 
tion crystallized, in a call for a " People's Convention," to be 
held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on October seventh. 

But before this convention could be held, other events had 
happened which placed a different aspect, on the situation. 
On the seventeenth of September, the bloody battle of Antietam 
was fought. The Northern armies remained in possession of 
the field, and claimed the victory. President Lincoln had been 
meditating emancipation and had prepared a draft of his Proc- 
lamation. He had been repeatedly urged to issue such a proc- 
lamation, but had never been brought to believe that the time 
had come. Just when he came to the determination, in his 
own mind, that he would issue it, is uncertain. But he did not 
wish to issue it, while the fortunes of the war appeared against 
us. In homely, but vigorous English, he has himself described 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 449 

how at last he came to issue it when he did : " Wlien Lee came 
over the Potomac," he said, " I made a resolve that, if Mc- 
Clellan drove him back, I would send the proclamation after 
him. The battle of Antietam was fought Wednesday, but I 
could not find out till Saturday, whether we had won a victory 
or lost a battle. It was then too late to issue it that day, and 
on Sunday I fixed it up a little, and on Monday I let them 
have it." 

At last, Sumner and Massachusetts and the President were 
in liarmony, upon the great question of emancipation. And 
tliough the Proclamation did not come as Sumner wished, it 
can fairly be said, it came, as soon as the country was prepared 
for it. He was right when he insisted that slavery was wrong 
and should be abolished ; but it was a monster evil that had 
grown, with the growth of the country, until it had reached 
mammoth proportions and could not carelessly at any mo- 
ment be plucked up by the roots. Sumner's great agitation of 
the question was the work of a reformer and it bore the fruit 
of substantial and permanent success, when at last it was 
gathered. 

While he watched Sumner cultivating it, Lincoln had been 
carefully looking for the harvest time. He saw the tide had 
been setting against him, because emancipation was not de- 
clared. In 1861, the line of party had been almost wiped out, 
in the determination of loyal people, both Democrats and Re- 
publicans, to support the war for the Union. This year a 
large number of Members of Congress were to be elected and it 
was vital, for the Administration, to have the Republican ma- 
jority of the House maintained. Congress controlled the ap- 
propriations and, by withholding money necessary for the prose- 
cution of the war, could dictate, in large measure, the policy of 
the Administration. The Democratic Conventions of Ohio, 
Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois had declared against the 
policy of the Republicans for emancipation and demanded that 
the war be conducted for the preservation of the Union alone. 
They declared that a war for the abolition of slavery could not 
have their support. The Democrats of other States followed 
their lead, as bitter in fact, but more diplomatic in expression. 
They were entering into the campaign, with a will, and with 
many promises of success before them. The anti-slavery work 
of Congress had gone far enough to arouse the bitter hostility 
of Democrats, who were not committed to the prosecution of 
the war, but not far enough to deal an effective blow against 
slavery; far enough to awaken every element of bitter opposi- 
tion North and South, but not far enough to awaken any en- 



450 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

thusiasm among Eepublicans. The Administration had so 
far only pursued a partial policy, where it was exposed to all 
the dangers of a reaction of public opinion. Lincoln was 
too clear sighted a politician not to appreciate the dangers of 
such a position. He determined to lay before the people the 
choice between Union and slavery and place them where voters 
would be persuaded that both could not survive, that one or 
the other must perish. With a great cause to work for, and a 
battle cry worthy of the struggle they were compelled to make, 
Eepublicans would be encouraged to work. 

The proclamation was issued two weeks before the date fixed 
" for the People's Convention." The Republicans, now 
thoroughly aroused to the situation and convinced of the im- 
portance of the return of Sumner to the Senate, urged him to 
take the stump. This he did, speaking in a dozen or more 
places in the vState, during the campaign. A meeting was 
arranged for Faneuil Hall, Boston, at noon of October sixth, 
the day before the convention of the " People's " party, called 
to be held at the same place. The hour of Sumner's meeting 
was fixed at noon, so as to secure the attendance of the business 
men of the city. The hall was filled to overflowing. 

Referring to the criticisms that had been made of him, for his 
policy of emancipation, he said that they had now become of 
little conse<|uence, for even if he was once alone, he was no 
longer so ; for with him were now arrayed the loyal multitudes 
of the North, and that they were all on the side of the Presi- 
dent. If he were criticised once, for being hostile to the Admin- 
istration, he could be no longer, for the President had pro- 
claimed emancipation. To criticise him, therefore, and the 
platform of his party, in Massachusetts, was now to criticise the 
Administration ; for they all stood together. 

He insisted that the real object of the war was not to abolish 
slavery, nor to restore the Constitution as it was; but to put 
down the Rebellion, that there could be no separation of the 
States, that such an event would bring interminable chaos. If 
these States were allowed to go, what could be retained ? Who 
would control the Mississippi River? How could we tolerate 
on our borders a malignant slave empire? We must study the 
disease and its cause and apply the cure, not hesitatingly, but 
vigorously. The emancipation proclaimed by the President was 
a war measure adopted by him, as Commander-in-Chief of the 
armies, for the suppression of armed public enemies. 

Without emancipation, all our efforts would be in vain. It 
was not enough to beat armies. Rebel communities envenomed 
against the Union would have to be restored and the South 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 451 

quieted. This could only be done, by removing the disturbing 
cause. Slavery was the disease and it must be extirpated by 
the knife and by lire, so that the healthful operations of the 
national life could be regained. This could not be accom- 
plished by force alone. A people defeated, on the battlefield 
alone, will remain sullen and revengeful, ready for another 
rebellion. To trample down the Kebellion, you must trample 
down slavery. To end the war otherwise, is to end it in appear- 
ance only, not in reality. " Time will be gained for new 
efforts, and slavery will coil itself to spring again." 

Emancipation was the right of the slaves and we could 
not expect the favor of a just God upon us while we did wrong 
by refusing them freedom. Having now been proclaimed as a 
war measure, it should be sustained, as the army, in the field, is 
sustained. If we did this, European nations could no longer 
be deluded into believing that slavery had nothing to do with 
tlie war. It could no longer be said that it was a war for em- 
pire on one side and for independence upon the other, and that 
all generous ideas were on the side of Eebellion. With emanci- 
pation before us, there would be no longer talk that separation 
was inevitable and we were doomed to dismemberment. We 
would only be fulfilling the wishes of our fathers, the rights of 
human nature and the declared object of our Revolution. On 
such an issue, there could be but two parties, the one for 
the country, with Lincoln, and the other against it, with Davis. 
Resolutions sustaining emancipation were read and adopted, 
at the meeting, with great enthusiasm. 

On the next day, October seventh, the "People's Conven- 
tion" met, in the' same Hall. It nominated Charles Devens 
for Governor and candidates against the others, of the Repub- 
licans. The day after this, October eighth, the Democratic 
Convention met' at Worcester and indorsed these nominations 
of the " People's Convention." The issue was thus made up 
on the emancipation policy of the Administration and the 
re-election of Sumner. 

Sumner was very active during the campaign, speaking at 
numerous places, in Massachusetts; at Salem, at Springfield, 
where the Springfield Republican was opposing his re-election, 
and at the dinner of Hampshire County Agricidtural Society, 
at Northampton, the only time he ever spoke at a county fair. 
He was introduced to the Society by Erastus Hopkins, his class- 
mate at the Boston Latin Seliool, who described him as he 
appeared forty years before : " in height and in breadth as well 
as in diligence and scholarship, first among equals." 

Such men as John G. Whittier, Horace Greeley and Wendell 



452 J-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Phillips took part in the campaign for Sumner. Wendell Phil- 
lips declared that he was " the hardest worker Massachusetts 
had ever sent to the Senate, — patient in labor, untiring in effort, 
boundless in resources, terribly in earnest, — the only man who, 
in civil affairs, was to be compared to the great terror of the 
Union armies, Stonewall Jackson, both idealogists, both horsed 
on an idea, and both men whom, a year before, the drudges of 
State Street would have denounced as unpractical and im- 
practicable." The result of the campaign, at home, was all 
that Sumner could wish. In entire harmony among themselves, 
and with the Administration, having a great stake to play for, 
the Eepublicans were successful. They carried Massachusetts 
by more than 27,000 majority. 

The result in other States was disheartening. New York 
and New Jersey elected Democratic Governors. The President's 
own State, Illinois, sent a Democratic Senator to Washington. 
In Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, the Democrats gained 
largely in Congressmen. In many other States, the Repub- 
licans won only by reduced majorities. These States were not 
prepared for emancipation. Their statesmen had not been as 
vigorous in public education, as Sumner was in Massachusetts. 

In this election, the wisdom of Lincoln again appeared. 
The losses, in these States, if continued in the other States, 
would have left him with a Democratic Congress. But he 
had been tender, in all things, of the rights of the Border States. 
And, at the last minute, these had saved him this humiliation. 
There was a decided gain in Congressmen in Missouri, Dela- 
ware, Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland. And they, with 
the New England States, which stood firm, with California and 
Oregon ; and with Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota, that sent solid 
Eepublican delegations, gave their party a majority in Con- 
gress. So that the five slave States, which had been saved to the 
Union, by Lincoln's care, were used by him effectively in over- 
powering the States in rebellion. 

On the fifteenth of January, 1863, the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts met to choose Sumner's successor. The two Houses 
Yoted separately. As the roll was called, each member pro- 
nounced the name of the candidate he voted for, the result 
showing that Sumner had two hundred and twenty-seven votes, 
out of the whole two hundred and seventy-four, in both Houses. 
In other words he had 227 votes and all the other candidates 
together had only forty-seven. Josiah 0. Abbott had forty- 
three of these scattering votes, while Caleb Cushing and Charles 
Prancis Adams each had two. 

Sumner was in his seat^ at the opening of Congress. The 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 453 

session was destined to be a short and uninteresting one. After 
the work of the preceding long and laborious session, and tlie 
campaign which followed, there was a disposition among Con- 
gressmen to wait and see what would be the results of their own 
work, already done, and of the Proclamation of the President, 
before reaching out farther. The adverse election, the Eepubli- 
cans had met with in many States, was a caution to them to be 
careful. 

Public interest was being transferred to other scenes. The 
border States were now considered safe to the Union ; the elec- 
tions there having gone with the Eepublicans, when other 
JSTorthern States had not. The desperate battle of Stone River, 
now remembered as the bloodiest of the whole war, considering 
the numbers engaged, convinced the Confederacy that Ken- 
tucky, at least, was gone beyond recovery. The tide of Southern 
invasion had been rolled back, from Antietam, with desperate 
losses and Lee's army, while still threatening Washington, was 
confined within the recesses of Virginia. The Mississippi River, 
save for Vicksburg, now invested with Grant's army, flowed un- 
vext to the sea, cutting off to itself and from the Confederacy 
the greater part of Louisiana, as well as Arkansas and Texas, 
States which had thus far furnished rich supplies to the new 
government. Desperate battles had been fought and great vic- 
tories had been won by the Confederates. Thus far victory 
had too seldom perched upon the banners of the North. But, 
upon the whole, the extent of the territory held by the Con- 
federacy was materially reduced and its resources greatly cur- 
tailed. ' But the armies upon berth sides were gathering for the 
death struggle and, the elections having passed, the eyes of the 
country as well as of Congress, were turned upon them. 

xA.s early as May 26, 1862, Sumner had introduced a resolu- 
tion in the Senate declaring the time had come to ask colored 
men to enlist in our armies. On the last day of the previous 
session, the bill became a law, which authorized the President to 
receive, into the service of the United States, colored troops for 
the purpose of performing camp service or any other labor, or 
military or naval service, for which they might be competent. 
On the sixth of October, in his speech in Faneuil Hall, Sumner 
had again advocated the enlistment of colored soldiers. On the 
ninth of February, 1863, he introduced a bill, providing for the 
enrollment, as soldiers, by the commanding officer, in whose 
department they might be found, of all colored men, between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five, made free, by the laws passed 
in 1861 and 1862, to confiscate property used for insurrec- 
tionary purposes, and to punish treason, by confiscating the 



454 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

property of rebels, or by tbe President's Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation. It provided for the enlistment of not exceeding three 
hundred thousand, to be armed and equij^ped as soldiers and to 
receive the same rations, clothing and equipments as volunteers. 
Such a bill did not pass at this session, but it did become a law 
a year later. In the meantime, Secretary Stanton had gone 
forward and in several instances, by an order of the War De- 
partment, had authorized the enlistment of colored troops, 
beginning with an order issued August 25, 186S. 

A great outcry had been made, in advance, by Southern 
people and their sympathisers, against the employment of 
colored troops. It was objected to, as exciting servile insurrec- 
tion, as barbarous and in violation of the rules of war. But 
the result justified the wisdom of the action. The first colored 
regiment that went, from Sumner's State, was the Fifty-fourth 
Massachusetts, led by Colonel Robert G. Shaw, a brilliant young 
white officer. The regiment was almost cut to pieces, in an as- 
sault upon Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina, on 
the eighteenth of July, 1863. Colonel Shaw was shot on 
the parapet of the Fort, and his body was thrown, by the 
Confederates, into the common trench, with those of his dead 
colored troops. 

Braver troops never entered the service, and to-day one of 
the most beautiful memorials, in art, is the has-reJief, by Au- 
gustus St. Gaudens, erected on Boston Common, in com- 
memoration of this regiment. It stands beneath the elm tree, 
still living, under which Governor Andrew reviewed, in May, 
1863, the regiment, as it marched down Beacon Street, opposite 
the State House, on its way to the front. It represents the 
young commander, beside his sturdy troops who, grimly carry- 
ing their guns aloft, keep step to tlie music that marches them 
forth to fight for tlieir freedom. Over them all, in the figure, 
floats the death angel, beckoning them on with her right hand, 
while, in the left, she holds the palm and the poi:)pies, emblems 
of victory and death. 

Sumner took a deep interest in the enlistment of this regi- 
ment, and in following its fortunes. He wrote to John Jay, of 
New York, May, 1863, tliat if the Seventh New York Regiment 
would welcome this African regiment, as it passed through that 
city, it would be an epoch as good as a victory, and the sure 
herald of many victories and that tlie Seventh would thereby 
contribute more to tlie war than when it hurried to Washington, 
at the news of the firing upon Fort Sumter. Two months later 
at the news of their disaster, at Fort Wagner, he wrote that he 
could not be consoled for the death of Shaw and added the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 455 

prediction, now fulfilled, " That death will be sacred in history 
and in art." Two years later, by an article in tiie Boston Daily 
Advertiser, he started the movement for the Shaw Memorial, 
and himself headed the committee to secure an artist to execute 
the work, and superintend its erection. To Sumner is given 
the credit of suggesting the general design of the work. He 
did not live long enough to see the monument completed. But 
during the last years of his life he illustrated a debate on the 
supplementary Civil Rights Bill with these words : 

" ' Bury him with his niggers,' was the rude order of the 
Eebel officer, as he flung the precious remains of our admirable 
Colonel Shaw, into the common trench at Fort Wagner, where 
he fell, mounting the parapets at the head of colored troops. 
And so was he buried, lovely in death as in life. The intended 
insult became an honor. In that common trench the young 
hero rests, symbolizing the great Equality, for which he died. 
No Roman monument, with its Siste, viator, to the passing 
traveler, no ' labor of an age in piled stones,' can match in 
grandeur that simple burial." 

The behavior of these troops made a deep impression at the 
North and did more perhaps than anything else to convince the 
public that colored troops could fight well, in the line of battle. 
Though till now they were sparingly enlisted, after this their 
employment went forward vigorously. So that, in the battle of 
Nashville alone, it was estimated that twenty-five per cent, of 
the loss of the Union army fell upon the negro division. And 
between 1863 and 1805, one hundred and eighty thousand of 
them enlisted under the Union flag. While the South de- 
nounced their employment, early in the war, and punished their 
white officers, if taken prisoners, with death, as inciters of ser- 
vile insurrection; before the close of the war the opinion of the 
South also changed. General Lee repeatedly urged their enlist- 
ment; but not till among the very last general orders was their 
recruiting ordered. It was then too late to help the South, but 
not too late to give emphatic endorsement of the merit of such 
troops. 

During a debate at this session of Congress over a bill for the 
gradual emancipation of the slaves of Missouri, Sumner was 
taunted by Senator Powell of Kentucky, with desiring these 
negroes to be freed " so that Governor Andrew could recruit 
there to fill up the Massachusetts quota." To which Sumner 
replied that he " would have a musket put in tlie hands of every 
one of these negroes in Missouri." 

Notwithstanding President Lincoln's Proclamation, the sub- 
ject of Emancipation still continued an important and difficult 



456 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

question for the solution of Congress. His Proclamation only 
emancipated the slaves in the States which were in rebellion. 
But slavery still continued to exist in the border States, Dela- 
ware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Western Virginia, 
notwithstanding the Proclamation of Emancipation, It was 
proposed to free the slaves in these States by compensating the 
owners of them ; and thus secure emancipation in all the States. 

Sumner was not opposed to compensated emancipation. He 
had already voted for it in the case of the District of Columbia. 
It was a method of dealing with slavery in the Border States 
which President Lincoln had much at heart. But Sumner was 
not greatly in favor of it ; and, indeed, it was not very popular 
with Congress. This bill had been introduced in the House, 
by Noell, of Missouri, and it provided that the Government 
would apply ten million dollars to aid in the emancipation of 
all the slaves of Missouri, upon the passage of a bill for that 
purpose, irrepealable except by the consent of the United States. 
This bill passed the House. In the Senate it was referred to 
the Judiciary Committee, which reported a substitute, providing 
for " the gradual or immediate emancipation of all slaves in 
Missouri, to take effect, on some day, not later than July 
fourth, 1876. If it took effect before July fourth, 1865, the 
amount to be appropriated, by the Government, was to be 
twenty million dollars, if after that date ten million dollars. 
The amount appropriated, however, was not in any event to 
exceed three hundred dollars for each slave thus emancipated. 

Sumner was opposed to the three-hundred-dollar limit. He 
thought it was too large and should not exceed two hundred 
dollars. But he was especially opposed to the gradual feature 
of the bill. He contended that it was a war measure and, to 
provide that it should not take effect for ten or twenty years, 
was to his mind ridiculous. For the sake of the country as well 
as Missouri and for the sake of every slave, Abolition should 
be completed, at the earliest possible moment. The bill pro- 
vided for a certain sum, if it took effect in two years and a cer- 
tain other sum if it took effect in thirteen years. He was 
opposed to any such alternative. He wished it to take effect at 
once so that he might see the benefit of it and have it felt in 
the suppression of the Eebellion. For such a sum we ought to 
expect something very positive to be done for the ending of the 
war. He could not see any good to result by allowing eman- 
cipation to drag through all these years, with the possibility 
of reaction and the certainty of controversy through the whole 
time. 

" What is done in war," he said, " must be done promptly. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 457 

except, perhaps, under the policy of defence. Gradualism is 
delay and delay is the betrayal of victory. If you would be 
triumphant, strike quickly, let your blows be felt at once, with- 
out notice or premonition, and especially without time for re- 
sistance or debate. Time deserts all who do not appreciate its 
value. Strike promptly, and time becomes your invaluable ally ; 
strike slowly, gradually, prospectively, and time goes over to the 
enemy." 

Sumner moved to amend the bill, by substituting two hun- 
dred dollars, for three hundred, as the limit to be paid for each 
slave. This amendment was adopted. He also moved to sub- 
stitute 1864 for 1876 so that the act should go into operation 
on July fourth 1864. This motion was lost. He then moved to 
strike out the word " gradual " so that the money should be 
paid only on immediate emancipation. He was opposed to a 
gradual war measure. This motion too was lost. The bill then 
came on for passage with the gradual emancipation feature in 
it. Sumner voted for it declaring that he only did so, knowing 
it would go back to the House, where it could be amended, so as 
to leave out these unnatural provisions. The bill went back to 
the House, but was lost in the rush of business, incident to the 
closing hours of the session. The whole subject of compensated 
emancipation soon disappeared, in the comprehensive destruc- 
tion of slavery, by the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitu- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

DANGERS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE — SUMNEr's WORK IN 
PRESERVING PEACE — CORRESPONDENCE SPEECH ON FOR- 
EIGN RELATIONS — ^ARTICLE ON FRANKLIN AND SEIDELL IN 
PARIS 

Reference has already been made to one of the really great 
works that Smnncr did for his countrymen, and for which he 
is entitled to tlieir gratitude, accomplished largely outside of 
his official life; I refer to his efforts to maintain peace with 
foreign nations, especially England. This requires some ex- 
planation. During the Civil War, our relations with these na- 
tions were often strained. With France and England, we were 
more than once on the very verge of war. It required the ut- 
most patience and forbearance, on the part of the Government, 
and especially of President Lincoln and his Secretary of State, 
Mr. Seward, to avert it, owing to the trying position, in which 
they placed us, with the people. Xo one upheld the hands of 
the President and his Secretary, better than Sumner, and next 
to them, no one is entitled to more of the credit. 

The causes of these foreign troubles developed early in the 
war. The South then had plenty of money. The cotton crop 
never was so large, up till that time, as in 1860. The sale of 
this crop, mostly in England, had brought a large sum of ready 
money to tlie Southern people. The crop of the next year was 
only about half so large and this was reduced to one-fifth, for 
the year 1863. As a consequence, the price of cotton, owing 
to this reduced production, and the increased difficulty in get- 
ting it to market, had advanced from ll^d. in Liverpool, in 
1861, to 24:y2d. in 1862. It would sell, in Liverpool, for four 
times its price, in Charleston. The demand for it was great. 
But equally great was the difficulty of getting it. 

Three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy had authorized the issue of letters of 
marque and reprisal ; and two days later. President Lincoln had 
proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports and that priva- 
teers, with letters of marque from the Confederacy, would be 
treated as pirates. Of course, a good deal of this on both sides, 
was a war on paper. The South found no one to whom to 
issue her letters of marque, and the North had no navy with 
458 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 459 

which to enforce the blockade. Both sides hoped the whole 
affair would end with bluster, and each that it would result 
in its own government having its own way. While affairs were 
still in this condition, and before the Minister to England, 
appointed by President Lincoln, could reach London, where it 
was hoped he could present the situation of his government and 
advise delay, until the pacific intentions of Lincoln's adminis- 
tration could be seen and the South have an opportunity to 
take calmer counsels, England, with unseemly haste, recognized, 
by public proclamation, the Confederate States as belligerents. 

This, of course, added fuel to the flames. Wliere there was 
hope before, all was dark now. This right accorded the South 
by a powerful nation, like England, encouraged her to expect 
prompt recognition as an independent nation, and, perhaps, 
intervention. This, the South reasoned, would mean Independ- 
ence. Belligerent rights gave the South increased facilities for 
obtaining supplies of war and for recognition. These she en- 
ergetically used, hoping that before the North could arm her- 
self for the conflict, resistance would be useless. 

Nothing was left the North, but to go forward energetically, 
to prepare for war, and to provide the means to enforce the 
blockade she had declared. War ships would do this, as well 
as curtail the exercise of the rights of belligerency, which had 
been so promptly extended. The energy with which the North 
met the demand for ships, will be seen when it is remembered 
that, when Lincoln was inaugurated, the United States had but 
one single vessel in a Nortliern port fit for aggressive opera- 
tions. By the end of 1863, she had six hundred, which was in- 
creased to seven hundred, before the war closed. As an illus- 
tration of how rapidly this work was done, it may be stated, that 
one contractor, James B. Eads, furnislied finished, in less than 
one hundred days, eight ships of an aggregate of five thousand 
tons burden. Yet when the contract was taken, the timber had 
to be cut from the woods and the machinery made with which 
to manufacture the armor. 

This powerful navy, thus created, was manned by brave and 
capable men, loyal to their flag and ambitious to distinguish 
themselves in its service. It promptly grappled with the work 
of enforcing the blockade and of closing the ports of the South, 
so as to prevent all trade with Europe. This trade was im- 
mensely profitable, in the early years of the war, when the South 
had cotton to sell and money with which to buy supplies. It 
is estimated that the profits on a single cargo of cotton goods 
to the South with the return cargo of cotton, owing to the great 
difference of prices, between Charleston and Liverpool would 



400 ^I^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

more than repay the cost of construction of the best steamer, 
and the expenses of the voyage. The trade opened a great field 
for enterprise, and encouraged by the attitude of their home 
governments towards the Xortii, with their friendship for the 
South, European shipping rushed into the business. Blockade 
running became, for the time, of wonderful extent. To facili- 
tate it, depots of supplies were established at neighboring 
friendly ports, such as Nassau, on one of the Bahama Islands, 
near the coast of Florida, Here goods could be carried and 
landed, in large quantities, with perfect safety to the vessel, 
from risk of capture, and, a favorable opportunity being 
watched, they could thence be carried, in poorer and smaller 
vessels, into Southern ports. If the last transit could be pre- 
vented, of course, the business would be destroyed. It was as 
important for the North to break it. up, as it was to destroy 
the supplies of the Confederate armies or to capture their guns. 
Indeed, these guns when captured were often found to be made 
in England, or other parts of Europe. 

How well the Northern navy did its work, is seen, when we 
remember that more than seven hundred British vessels alone 
were sunk by it during tlie war. These were mostly vessels 
engaged in this contraband trade. Their owners were in sym- 
pathy with the South and were favorable to her success; and 
the destruction of their ships, even though engaged in this 
business, awakened a deep-seated animosity towards the North, 
that easily found its expression, and its influence, at home. 
The number of these ship-owners was large, but the number 
affected by the destruction of the ships, those who built them, 
repaired them, supplied them and were in different ways re- 
lated to them, was larger still. It was a powerful influence 
against the Union. It united against the North the aristo- 
cratic classes of England, in large measure her governing 
classes, whose sympathies went out to the South rather than 
to their more democratic brethren of the North. It was soon 
seen that the active portion of the British nation wan against 
the North. 

Mr. Seward with some bitterness recorded the feeling, when 
he said : " It is indeed manifest in the tone of the speeches, 
as well as in the general tenor of popular discussion, that 
neither the responsible ministers, nor the House of Commons, 
nor the active portion of the people of Great Britain sympathize 
with this Government, and hope, or even wish, for its success in 
suppressing the insurrection ; and that on the contrary the 
whole British nation, speaking practically, desire and expect 
the dismemberment of the Eepublic." 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 461 

The transition from sentiments to open acts of hostility was 
easy. The building and arming and equipment, in England, 
of men-of-war to be used in the service of the South, tended 
strongly to inflame the feeling of the Northern States. The 
Florida and the Alabama were both built at Liverpool in 1862 
and were both sunk, in 1864, after two years of destructive 
service, in the Confederate cause. With British crews, and 
gunners trained in the English navy, drawing all their supplies 
from England and never entering a Rebel port, they captured, 
robbed and burnt Union property, wherever it could be taken. 
Their depredations excited a bitter feeling, in the North, which 
was never satisfied till the damages were assessed by the 
Geneva award, in 1872, and, subsequently, paid by England. 
The building of two more powerful iron-clad vessels at Liver- 
pool, in 1863, since known as the " Rebel Rams," for similar 
service, aroused the feeling to such an extent that it was openly 
declared that war would ensue if they were permitted to sail. 
But the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, with the re- 
treat of one Confederate army and the surrender of the other, 
fortunately for both sides, disclosed to England, the true con- 
dition of the Confederacy, and the Rams never sailed. 

The Trent affair, where Mason and Slidell, two emissaries of 
the Confederate government accredited respectively to Eng- 
land and France were unlawfully taken, from a British vessel, 
by a Northern ship and afterwards given up, has already been 
mentioned. These with other causes of feeling, all too numer- 
ous, were drawing the nations far apart and threatening war. 

But in all this picture, the part taken by the good Queen of 
England and her laboring classes, especially the operatives of 
the cotton mills of Manchester, who were sorely pressed by the 
conditions the war placed on their labor, should never be for- 
gotten. They remained steadfastly the friends of the North. 
The Queen, less blinded, perhaps, by too close contact with de- 
tails, saw from her high position, with true womanly instinct, 
the meaning of the struggle with slavery, far more clearly than 
some of her Ministers, notably Lord John Russell, her secre- 
tary of Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Gladstone, her Chancellor of 
the Exchequer. The plain people, to their credit be it said, are 
generally for liberty and against slavery. In this case fortu- 
nately for us, they had as their leaders such men as John Bright 
and Richard Cobden and some too among the nobility as the 
Duke and Duchess of Argyll. But the situation in England 
was full of danger. 

In France, our prospects were hardly less threatening. While 
she did not permit blockade running under her flag, she 



4G2 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

did accord to the South the rights of belligerency, on the 
ocean, so that without a single open port, the Confederacy en- 
joyed immunity for her vessels, as lawful cruisers and allowed 
all, who could, to furnish her supplies and munitions of war. 
Considering the time also propitious, she made a pretext for 
war with our sister Eepublic of Mexico, in concurrence with 
England and Spain. The latter two very soon withdrew, but 
France continued her aggression, to the point of an armed in- 
vasion, with an attempt to make the Archduke Maximilian of 
Austria the Emperor of Mexico. This was in direct contra- 
vention of all the ancient precedents of the United States, des- 
ignated as the Monroe doctrine, against the extension of Eu- 
ropean dominion, upon this continent. It would not have been 
attempted, but for the dire extremity, in which our fortune 
was placed, in 1862-3. 

A persistent effort was also made, by the French Emperor, 
to mediate, in the struggle between the North and the South. 
He proposed to England and Russia to unite with him, in this 
tender, accompanying it, with a proposition for an armistice, 
for six months, during which every act of war should cease ! 
England and Eussia, however, better informed, declined the 
part proposed. The offer was promptly rejected by President 
Lincoln; and by solemn resolution, of both Houses of Congress, 
it was attributed to a " misunderstanding " of the real ques- 
tion at issue and the character of the war. Congress declared 
that a repetition of the offer would be considered " an un- 
friendly act." It could have no other effect than to encourage 
the South and Avas construed witli the reception of the agents of 
the Confederacy, at the Tuileries and Fontainebleau, as an at- 
tempt to aid tile Rebellion. The resolutions were drafted, by 
Sumner, and were adopted by large majorities, in the Senate 
and House, and then sent, as they provided, to our Ministers 
abroad to be communicated to the governments, to which they 
were accredited. Lieber declared that they did not sound 
like resolutions, but as a proclamation, by the people, through 
their representatives, " as if America herself had said it, her left 
hand on her sword, her right stretched forward to the multi- 
tude of nations." 

The influence of such acf^ upon the people of the ISTorth can 
be readily imagined. The feeling was that our treatment, by 
these powers, in such a crisis, was not fair ; that instead of up- 
holding a people, in its effort to create a slave nation, tlieir in- 
fluence should be cast in the scale of humanity and for the 
North ; or if that could not be, that they should at least main- 
tain an attitude of neutrality, in fact. The constant recurrence, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 4G3 

of evidence of a different spirit, developed a strong feeling, in 
the North, against the offending nations. Northern merchants 
could not see their vessels sunk and their cargoes destroyed, 
by freebooting vessels, of other professedly neutral nations, 
without an outraged sense of their wrongs. They cried loudly 
for redress. Soldiers declared they were as ready to fight their 
secret enemies, who furnished guns, as their open enemies who 
used them. There was a strong war feeling developed against 
both England and France, especially against England. A war, 
with either of them, in our then trying situation, would have 
been dangerous. 

In explanation of the conduct of England and France, it can 
be said that their governing classes, their nobility and landed 
gentry, feared the tendency of democratic institutions. The 
entire absence in the United States of hereditary rank and of 
primogeniture, which played so great part in maintaining the 
position of their upper classes, was an example which they 
would gladly have seen removed. The people they thought had 
too much part in our institutions. Tliey had been taught to 
believe that such a form of government could not be permanent. 
When the Rebellion came, it was, therefore, not unexpected to 
them. They had anticipated some such result as the outcome 
of an attempt of popular government. They believed it was 
only the natural and expected falling apart of the nation and 
that the South would ultimately succeed. The moral aspect of 
the question, the overthrow of slavery, they had overlooked. 
Indeed this was not surprising; for the Administration, the 
North itself, in the early period of the war had kept it in the 
background. Lincoln's paramount wish was to save the Union 
and it was not his purpose, at first, to disturb slavery, where it 
already existed. He hoped, by assuring the South of this, to 
secure her early return to the Union. 

The events, that aroused Europe to the true meaning of the 
war, were, first, the Proclamation of Emancipation and, sec- 
ond, the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The first 
came after the bloody battle 'of Antietam, in September, 1863 
and the second came, in July, 18G3, and both long after the 
opening of the war. The one by a national act proclaimed the 
anti-slavery character of the war for the Union ; the other, by 
sweeping and decisive victories, announced, in unmistakable 
terms, the determination of the North and the hopeless char- 
acter of the str.uggt'e of the South. Then European sympathy 
for the Soutli quickly fell away; the tide turned toward the 
North and the danger of a foreign war disappeared. 

The real danger to the Union, from abroad, was before this. 



464 I^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and it was then that the good work of its friends was done. 
Sumner's correspondence, till then, had been, with his Eu- 
ropean acquaintances, merely a friendly one. But he had kept 
up and extended his friendships and his views were well-known 
upon the question of slavery and the danger it threatened, to 
the Republic. His visit to Europe in 1857 when in search of 
health, after the assault by Brooks, had drawn the attention of 
his friends to the subject. His visit to John Bright at Llan- 
dudno had led to a mutual regard and a correspondence. He 
became our most powerful advocate in Great Britain. He was 
an orator of the first rank, of sturdy common sense and so per- 
fectly fearless that Cobden wrote of him that " he rather liked 
to battle with the long odds against him." He knew the re- 
sources of the North as compared with those of the South and, 
when Gladstone prophesied victory for the Rebellion and de- 
clared that Jefferson Davis had made both an army and a navy 
and, what was greater than either, a nation, Bright sturdily 
pronounced it a vile speech and eloquently predicted that the 
Nation would come out of the struggle, " one people and one 
language and one law and one faith and, over all that wide con- 
tinent, the home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of 
every race and of every clime." 

During the whole struggle, Sumner kept closely in touch with 
Bright ; they exchanged frequent and long letters, communi- 
cated their private opinions and each conveyed to the other 
prophecies of probable future steps of their own governments. 
The letters to Sumner when received were often conveyed by 
him to President Lincoln by whom they were read and their 
contents discussed and sometimes they were laid before the 
Cabinet. The influence for good of John Bright and Sumner 
in molding and influencing the sentiment of their two coun- 
tries and holding each back from rash steps, that too certainly 
would have led to war, cannot now be overestimated. The 
debt of gratitude we owe to John Bright should never be for- 
gotten. In Parliament and on the platform and privately in 
well directed speech, in influential circles, and elsewhere, he 
towered the leader of the plain people of Great Britain, for 
freedom and against slavery, for national unity and well-being, 
in a great crisis. 

In another class, Sumner's influence reached the Duke and 
Duchess of Argyll. Among the earliest of Sumner's English 
friends will be remembered Lord Morpeth, later Earl Carlyle, 
whom Sumner met in England on his first visit and later in 
Boston, while travelling in America. The Duchess of Argyll 
was his niece^ the daughter of his sister the Duchess of Suther- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 465 

land. This family became Sumner's warm friends and ad- 
mirers and took a deep interest, in his public career. He cor- 
responded with the Duchess of Argyll, all through the period of 
the war, and her letters are full of expressions of sympathy, for 
the Union cause and of fervent piety and trust. She was of a 
deeply religious character and could have no sympathy with 
human slavery. She earnestly hoped for its extinction. Her 
husband, the Duke of Argyll was, during the war, the Keeper 
of the Privy Seal and, therefore, a member of Queen Victoria's 
Cabinet. Besides reading the letters of Sumner and the 
Duchess he also wrote occasionally to Sumner. Though 
guarded in his letters, they show that he did not mistake the 
character of the struggle. Sumner earnestly pressed upon them 
his views, his confidence in the ultimate triumph of the North 
and he urged upon them earnestly, their duty to keep England 
true to the moral side of the question. He wrote to her, April 
7, 1863, " Remember, my dear friend, I am no idolater of the 
Union; I have never put our cause on this ground. But I 
hate slavery; and never, through any action or non-action of 
mine shall a new slave-empire be allowed to come into being, to 
insult God and man." Though she doubted the success of his 
cause, her answer was : " My hope and prayer is that you may 
come out of the fiery trial stronger, freer, happier than before." 
These are not the only correspondents Sumner had in Europe 
during this period. I use them only as illustrations of his work, 
in this direction. Among others could be mentioned, W. E. 
Foster and Richard Cobden, among members of Parliament. 
The latter wrote : " It is nothing but your great power that has 
kept the hands of Europe off you." He had a large acquaint- 
ance and he corresponded with many others. He knew person- 
ally Earl Russell, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Mr. 
Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who attained 
prominence, as representatives in the English Cabinet, of the 
element, in Great Britain, favorable to the South. He kept in 
touch with them, read their speeches, studied their conduct 
and noted English newspaper comment upon it. Sumner's 
position as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
in the Senate, gave added weight to his opinions in England, 
where his abilities were well-known. He was understood as 
standing near to President Lincoln's administration, and his 
letters were looked to, as foreshadowing action, that would prob- 
ably be taken by the North, and as explaining her feeling to- 
wards England. Sumner's peace principles were well-known 
and it was readily seen from his letters, that he looked beyond 
any mere personal considerations, and to the real well-being of 



466 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

both nations, in deprecating action by either that might lead 
to war. While he frankly told England, in 1861-2, she was 
writing a sorry chapter, in her history, the letters of his 
friends revealed that she was not all for the South, that there 
was a powerful influence there still, for the North, and this rev- 
elation counselled and encouraged patience. 

Sumner was convinced, during the earlier years of the war, 
that its anti-slavery character was not properly understood, 
in England, and in his letters to correct this impression, he 
was unwearied, in pressing the moral side of the question, upon 
his correspondents. He insisted with earnestness that slavery 
caused the war, that slavery alone maintained it, that England, 
after all her work for emancipation, could not ignore her na- 
tional position upon this question, and unite with the South, 
in creating and introducing, into the family of nations, a new 
power, whose chief cornerstone was slavery. He scouted the 
idea maintained by English Southern sympathizers that it was 
a struggle, like so many of the old world and of the new too, in 
tlie American Revolution, for extension of territory, upon the 
one side and for independence on the other. He solemnly 
warned them, tliat there was a right and a wrong to the ques- 
tion, that God had His side and He could not be ignored, that 
though tliey miglit attempt it, sooner or later He would be 
heard. It was this idea, thoroughly possessing the minds of 
such men as John Bright that gave, them the influence they 
had, in their speeches, to hold back the hand of England from 
decisive action, for the South. 

Sumner deprecated strongly the action of the English govern- 
ment, in permitting the Florida and the Alabama, to be built, 
and manned and provisioned in England, and to go forth to 
their harvest of destruction. When the Rebel Rams were 
known to be building, at Liverpool, ostensibly for China, but in 
reality for the South, he wrote earnestly, to prevent their being 
permitted to sail. He insisted that while others thought dif- 
ferently, he had never considered the afi'air of the Trent a 
cause for war, but, with these Rams, the case was otherwise. 
If they were to be permitted to sail, to sweep American com- 
merce from the sea, nothing could hold back the dread day of a 
war with England. If our commerce went, hers would go next, 
our nation would retaliate, that much as he had sought to 
preserve peace, between the two countries, any hand would be 
powerless to stay the flood, if those ships were permitted to sail, 
that he knew the temper of the President and of every member 
of his Cabinet, upon this question, and much as he hoped for 
peace, he must agree with them that war would then be the 
only alternative. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 467 

Sumner held up, before his English friends, the condition 
of our resources, as compared with those of the South. While 
they were obliged to depend upon foreign countries for sup- 
plies, we were making arms faster than we needed them. He 
pointed out that our credit was good, our bonds meeting with 
ready sale and our Secretary of the Treasury having no diffi- 
culties to meet the requirements of the situation. While 
Southern fields were abandoned and Southern armies depleted 
by the course of the war, our industries went on the same as 
ever, business was active, travel was great, incomes large and the 
country marching forward ; that we were reminded, with sad- 
ness, by the funerals of our dead and the appearance of wounded 
soldiers, upon our streets, of the wrongs of slavery, for which 
we were suffering, still our armies were easily kept up to the 
requirements in number, were well fed, well clothed, in good 
spirits and, notwithstanding temporary reverses, had absolute 
confidence in our ultimate triumph. 

During the early months of 1863, Sumner had been asked to 
address the Young Men's Republican Union of New York City, 
on our Foreign Relations. The sympathy for the South con- 
tinued unabated in both France and England. No overt act 
of war was committed, professions of neutrality were still made ; 
but rumors of mediation continued, notice of a motion, for 
the recognition of the Confederacy, had been given in the Eng- 
lish House of Commons ; this notice was renewed ; it was fol- 
lowed by the presentation and debate, upon a petition for 
negotiations to be opened with the great powers of Europe, for 
a joint recognition of the independence of the Confederate 
States; the Florida and the Alabama still followed their career 
of destruction, upon the seas ; the work on the Rebel Rams pro- 
gressed and neared completion; and the English Government, 
in answer to the protest of our Minister, Mr. Adams, was in- 
sisting upon its inability to interfere, in any way, with the 
work on these vessels or their sailing. Mr. Adams, in answer, 
represented that the failure to do so would mean war, that, 
whatever might be the professions' of neutrality, to peiTnit a 
public enemy to fit out and provision and man such ships, on 
professedly neutral territory, made such a neutral a party to 
the war. It was during the happening of such events that 
Sumner wrote the Young Men's Republican Union, the last of 
August, fixing September tenth as the time for his address. 

The speech came, at a crisis, in our affairs, with England. 
David Dudley Field, the chairman of the meeting, in introduc- 
ing the speaker, said : " At no former period in the history of 
the country has the condition of its foreign relations been so 



468 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

important and so critical as it is at this moment." The per- 
mission of the Eebel Earns to sail, one of which had been coaled, 
ready for her voyage, was expected to precipitate the conflict. 
Sumner felt he had exhausted his power to avert it, by means 
of correspondence. He hoped, at the last moment, by this 
means, to avert the threatened calamity. His plan was to ob- 
tain a full hearing with the English t^abinet, to most of whom 
he was personally known, and still stay their hand or, if that 
could not be done, and the war came, to place before the world, 
in plain and dispassionate terms, the justification of our course 
and the inconsistent position of England. The merits of the 
controversy were also imperfectly understood, at home. While 
there had been much discussion of it, in the North, it was 
thought well to have the whole case presented, in compact form, 
so that it would be understood. No one, from his position, was 
better qualified to do this, than the Chairman of the Committee, 
on Foreign Relations of the Senate. 

The address was delivered, in the great hall of Cooper In- 
stitute, of New York, which had been the scene of so many 
memorable occasions in oratory. As soon as the doors were 
opened, the vast room was filled, its seats, aisles, lobbies and 
platform, with an audience, numbering not less than three 
thousand people while others, for want of being able to gain 
an entrance, were turned away. There were gathered the 
acknowledged representatives of the intelligence, wealth and 
influence of the metropolis. From early evening, till eleven at 
night, the great audience listened attentively to his address, 
frequently interrupting the speaker, with applause and cheers, 
as he covered the ground of our troubles with England and 
France. 

Three newspapers in New York and two of Boston published 
the speech entire, in their columns, the next day, notwithstand- 
ing its length. The Times, of New York, gave up half the 
surface of the day's issue to it, owing to the national impor- 
tance of the subject, the speaker's intimate knowledge of it, 
and " his relations with some of the foremost publicists of Eng- 
land and France." A large edition of it was printed and cir- 
culated, by the Union, under whose auspices it was delivered, 
and copies of it were sent to our Consul at Liverpool to be dis- 
tributed to each member of the Cabinet and Parliament of Eng- 
land. , It was also reprinted in France, in an abridged form, 
and was largely commented upon in the newspapers of the three 
countries. Wlien it reached England, Earl Russell was on a 
visit to Scotland. He took occasion, at a public dinner, to refer 
to it and to answer some of its parts. In one English paper. 



eter 
per, I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 469 

Sumner was spoken of as the mouthpiece of the President, in 
the delivery of it, and the speech as having been read, by him, 
and the confidential members of his Cabinet, before delivery. 
This was not true, as neither the President, nor any member of 
his Cabinet, had read a line of it, before delivery. 

It cannot now be questioned that the address was opportune 
and that it bore good fruit, though at the time some of Sum- 
ner's English friends, who felt there had already been too much 
recrimination, on both sides, objected to its plain expressions. 
On the side of the United States there had been indignant and 
angry feeling towards France and England, but without care- 
ful knowledge of the facts, or the law, as applicable to them. 
Sumner was an acknowledged authority on both. Her people 
had a feeling that their government was too slow in appreciat- 
ing and resenting the injuries. A frank statement by one in 
high office, showed them that their rights had not been over- 
looked and their injuries would not be forgotten. It quieted 
feeling and restored confidence, in the course of the Administra- 
tion. On the European side, there was forgetfulness of our 
rights and apparent indifference, born, perhaps, of the thought, 
that the hands of the North were already full of trouble. But 
there was a growing mistrust and a feeling among business 
men that trouble was near for England, bankers refusing to 
make loans or extend credits, trade relations narrowed, for fear 
of war. It was apparent, to thinking people, on this side, 
that affairs had already progressed so far, that as soon as 
trouble with the South was over, England would be called 
upon for redress. It was best for her Cabinet to know the 
ground of our complaint, so that it could be more cautious, in 
avoiding future cause for it, and thus allay feeling and 
strengthen the hands of those, like Sumner, who really wished 
for a lasting peace. 

At the date of the delivery of the speech, it was supposed the 
departure of the Eebel Rams would not be stopped, by the Eng- 
lish Government. As late as September fourth Earl Russell in- 
formed Mr. Adams that the testimony against the vessels 
1 was insufficient and that they could not interfere with them. 
' But, on September eighth, he wrote that the sailing of the ves- 
' sels would be stopped. When he spoke, Sumner did not know 
I of this order and feared the vessels would be permitted to sail, 
' He had freely predicted that, if this took place, war against 
. England would be declared. Under the influence of Gettys- 
\ burg and Vicksburg and the predictions of her best friends, of 
' the consequences of her continuance in the course she was pur- 
suing, England's better nature was beginning to assert itself. 



470 ^JFE 0^ CHARLES SUMNER 

The crisis had passed. The published farewell to London of 
Mason, the agent of the Confederate government, appeared in 
the same issue of the newspapers as the reviews of Sumner's 
speech. Mason realized his presence there could be no longer 
useful. Slidell, her ambassador to France, never returned to 
America, but died in London, in 1871. But after his change 
in the attitude of the English Cabinet, the presence of Con- 
federate ambassadors was no longer dangerous in Europe. 

During this same autumn, and in the same vein as this 
speecli, Sumner published in the Atlantic Monthly a "Mono- 
graph from an old Note Book." It was a contrast between 
Benjamin Franklin, the representative of the Colonies and 
John Slidell, the representative of the Confederacy, at Paris. 
The purpose of it was to recall the brilliant success of Franklin, 
sought by all classes, and thus compelling the recognition of 
jarinces ; and the position of Slidell, supported by the Emperor 
alone, and by him, only because he feared the example of the 
Republic. Slidell's reception at the Tuileries had been pointed 
to, as compared with Franklin's, to prove the strength of the 
Confederacy abroad. Sumner thought the error of such a com- 
parison should be corrected. 

The article as reprinted in Sumner's published works oc- 
cupies thirty-eight pages, thirty-six of which are devoted to a 
description of the reception of Franklin, as shown by historical 
references, and only two, to the reception of Slidell. The 
great learning of Franklin, with his original investigations, 
in electricity and the sciences, his strong common sense, his 
exquisite social qualities, his perfect good nature, his sim- 
plicity of manners, his uprightness of soul, which made itself 
felt in the smallest things, his extreme tolerance, and above 
all his sweet serenity, changing easily to gaycty, caused his 
acquaintance to be sought for everywhere. The learned so- 
cieties, without political pretensions, received him as eagerly 
as statesmen, who were interested in our new problems of gov- 
ernment. His ready wit and his profound knowledge of human 
nature made him as easily felt among Ministers as among the 
masses. His society was sought for by princes, but he ap- 
peared in the Capital of Fashion in the plain clothes of a 
private citizen, " his flat hair without powder, his round hat, his 
coat of brown cloth," at the court receptions contrasted 
strangely with " the bespangled and embroidered dresses, the 
powdered and perfumed coiffures of the courtiers." Madame 
Campan, one of the attendants of Marie Antoinette, records that 
she assisted at one of the elegant fetes given to him "where the 
mostbeautiful among three hundred ladies was designated to 



I I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 471 

place a crown of laurel upon the white head and two kisses upon 
the cheeks " of the aged American philosopher. When he left 
to return to America, tlie Queen sent a litter to bear his sick 
body gently to the sea ; and when he died Mirabeau pronounced 
a magnificent eulogy npon him and, on his motion, France went 
into mourning, for him. 

Sumner described the meeting of Voltaire with Franklin. 
The aged dramatist had lived for many years near Geneva, in 
Switzerland, and had been urged, once more to visit Paris, 
before he died ; and he consented. His journey was a progress. 
He desired to meet Franklin. The latter brought his little 
grandson with him and desired Voltaire's benediction. " God 
and Liberty," said Voltaire, placing his hand upon the child's 
head, " this is the only benediction, proper for the grandson of 
Franklin." A few weeks after, they met again at the Academy 
and were seated side by side, when the distinguislied company 
applauded. Thereupon the old men arose and embraced. " The 
political triumphs of Franklin and the dramatic triumph 
of Voltaire caused the exclamation, ' Solon and Sophocles em- 
brace ! '" " It was more than this," added Sumner. " It was 
France and America embracing beneath the benediction of 
' God and Liberty.' " And Sumner adds, closing his article, 
and referring to the reception of Slidell : " The earlier struggle, 
adopted by the enlightened genius of France was solemnly 
placed under the benediction of ' God and Liberty.' The pres- 
ent struggle, happily thus far discarded, by that same enlight- 
ened genius, can liave no other benediction than ' Satan and 
Slavery.' " So after the extended and graceful description of 
Franklin in France with this short notice he dismissed John 
Slidell. 

Sumner continued to trace the contrast. The month after 
the publication of this article, he was invited to attend the 
annual dinner of the New England Society of New York. The 
Senate being in session he could not go ; for he made it a rale 
not to leave his post. But he wrote a stirring letter on " The 
Mayflower and the Slave ship." " Amid all the sorrows of a 
conflict without precedent," he wrote, "let us hold fast to the 
consolation that it is in simple obedience to the spirit in which 
New England was founded that we are now resisting the bloody 
efforts to raise a wicked power on the corner-stone of Human 
Slavery, and that as New Englanders we could not do other- 
wise." 

" If such wicked power can be raised on this continent, the 
Mayflower traversed its wintry sea in vain." 

"We remember, too, that another sliip crossed at the same 



472 LJ^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

time, buffeting the same sea. It was a Dutch ship, with twenty 
slaves, who were landed at Jamestown, in Virginia, and became 
the fatal seed of that slavery which has threatened to over- 
shadow the land. Thus the same ocean, in the same year, bore 
to the Western Continent the Pilgrim Fathers, consecrated to 
Human Liberty, and also a cargo of slaves. In the holds of 
these two ships were the germs of the present direful war, and 
the simple question now is between the Mayflower and the slave 
ship. Who that has not forgotten God can doubt the result ? " 
Slavery, as Sumner saw it, from this early beginning in the 
country, till its death, at the close of a bloody war, was a pro- 
longed tragedy. 



CHAPTER XXX 

EMANCIPATION — PASSAGE OF XIV AMENDMENT — EQUAL RIGHTS 
TO COLORED MEN, IN ARMY, ON STREET CARS, IN COURTS — 
REPEAL OF FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS — SUMMER'S PERSISTENCY 
— OTHER MEASURES 

As the war went on and defeat for the Confederacy seemed 
to draw near, new questions presented themselves in Congress, 
Its Members were not less busy than the soldiers in the field. 
Those who had been in Congress long enough, like Sumner, to 
become leaders, had burdens of work and responsibility thrust 
upon them. Sumner was now in the full tide of his career. 
He was one of the recognized leaders of the Senate. Strangers 
visiting that Chamber sought his face among the first. He was 
one of the pioneers of the new party that now had undisputed 
control of every department of the Government. His recog- 
nized ability, liis high treatment of moral questions and his 
courageous struggle against slavery had brought him the ad- 
miration of the plain people. He stood very near to the Presi- 
dent who relied upon and trusted him as a personal friend and 
confidential adviser. They differed, as men will differ often, 
but as men, each respected the opinions of the other. Sumner 
was bound to President Lincoln by personal ties, of mutual 
respect and admiration. Mrs. Lincoln shared her husband's 
admiration of Sumner's public career and more than once, as 
I we shall have occasion hereafter to see, this friendship revealed 
itself. Sumner was frequently asked to drive with the Presi- 
dent alone and to become one of the President's party, on ex- 
cursions and at receptions, or in the theatre. Frequently late 
at night, after the rush of the day's work was over, Sumner 
I visited the President, by appointment, to discuss some pending 
• and important question. This nearness to the President, ap- 
'■ parent to a casual observer, increased the responsibilities of 
I Sumner's place. His opinions were sought as reflecting those 
of the President ; his services were valued as being able to 
influence the administration. 

Sumner never sustained the same nearness to any other Presi- 
dent. During the Presidencies of Pierce and Buchanan, he was 
in a small minority of determined opponents of the Adrainistra- 
473 



474 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

tion. While during the Presidencies of Johnson and Grant, the 
spirit of harmony, that obtained during the earlier months of 
each, in the White House, changed to a spirit of active opposi- 
tion before the close. Jolmson soon broke with his party and 
the Impeachment proceedings estranged him permanently from 
his Eepublican friends. In the case of President Grant, his 
scheme for the annexation of San Domingo was firmly opposed 
by Sumner. And his subsequent removal from the Chairman- 
ship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, by Grant's friends, 
in retaliation, completed an estrangement that culminated in 
Sumner's support of Greeley, the nominee of the Democratic 
Party, as against Grant, for his second term. 

In January, 1864, Sumner introduced in the Senate a resolu- 
tion for the appointment of a special committee on Slavery 
and Freedmen, to take into consideration all propositions and 
papers concerning these subjects, with leave to report, by bill 
or otherwise. The resolution was adopted and Sumner was 
made Chairman of the new Committee of seven. It was a 
committee growing out of questions crowding upon the success- 
ful close of the war. While not neglecting other duties, Sum- 
ner kept his eye constantly on slavery and the new wards of the 
Republic who had now acquired their freedom. Being con- 
vinced that slavery had caused the war and that there could be 
no lasting peace between the sections wliile it continued to 
exist, he was determined that the war should not close without 
its complete destruction. The new committee was engaged in 
the disposition of matters tending to this end. As its chair- 
man, Sumner prepared some important reports, upon bills 
presented by it, to the Senate. They were prepared with that 
care and elaboration that characterized his work and are to-day 
monuments of his industry. 

By an amendment to the Appropriation Bill, Sumner secured 
at this session, the abolition of the coastwise slave trade. Under 
a statute, passed in 1807, this traffic in slaves had been legal- 
ized. Early in the session Sumner had reported from the Com- 
mittee on Slavery and Freedmen a bill for the prohibition of 
the traffic in slaves between the States and the transportation of 
any slave on any vessel, within the jurisdiction of the National 
Government. Owing to the press of other business, he had 
not been able to get the bill to a vote. He therefore moved the 
repeal of the existing statute legalizing such traffic, as an 
amendment to this appropriation bill. The amendment carried 
and the coastwise slave trade was thus abolished. 

It met with opposition. Sherman and Trumbull, though not 
opposed to the repeal of the law, were o^^posed to it when pre- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 475 

seiited in the form of an amendment to the appropriation bill. 
But Hendricks in compliment, perhaps unintentional, to Sum- 
ner, said : " I am surprised that any Senator should oppose the 
proposition of the Senator from Massachusetts, for we all 
know that, eventually it will be adopted. The objection to its 
materiality, or proper connection with the measure, is but an 
objection of time. No gentleman can question that the Senator 
from Massachusetts will eventually carry his proposition," 
But he was opposed to the amendment and with other Demo- 
crats voted against it. 

Another of Sumner's long struggles against slavery met 
success at this session of Congress. His early effort for the 
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law will be remembered. On the 
tenth of December, 18G3, he gave notice of his intention to offer 
a bill to repeal all laws on this subject. Pursuant to this 
notice, on the eighth of February, 1864, he introduced a bill 
for this purpose and, on his motion it was referred to the 
committee on Slavery and Freedom. On the 29th of February 
he reported this bill from the Committee. The accompanying 
report, recommending its passage and prepared by Sumner, 
was an exhaustive review of the subject in fifty-one pages 
covering the history of the legislation from the formation of 
the. Constitution. He gave the argument against the con- 
stitutionality of the law. It was bad enough, he said, to thrust 
an escaped slave back into bondage at any time; it was absurd 
to do so, at a moment when slavery was rallying all her forces 
to destroy the Government. A slave that had the courage and 
address to escape from his master, was needed as a soldier for 
freedom. In thus withdrawing support from slavery there was 
a contribution made to emancipation. To repeal these laws 
encouraged public opinion to sweep the barbarism from the 
country. 

In this report he cited, as an illustration of the cruel work- 
ing of the law, the case of Margaret Garner, who with her three 
children had escaped from slavery and had reached Cincinnati, 
when their flight was arrested. Unwilling to see her children 
returned to slavery, with a butcher-knife she determined to 
prevent it, in the only way that lay in her power. She had 
killed J3ne, an interesting little girl, almost white. To the Chris- 
tian minister, who interrogated her as to the cause for the deed, 
she answered : " The child was mine, given to me by God to do 
the best a mother could by it. I have done the best I could; I 
would have done more and better for the rest; I knew it was 
better for them to go home to God than back to slavery." But 
she was restrained and after the determination of some ques- 



476 I'l^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

tions of jurisdiction, under the fugitive slave law, she with 
her two children remaining and the dead body of the other, 
emancipated, were carried back to slavery under an escort of 
armed men. 

The history of this bill furnishes an excellent illustration of 
the difficulties Sumner encountered and the persistency with 
which he met them. To record the different steps will serve as 
an example of what he did both in this and in other instances, 
when he wished to secure legislation. On March seventh, he 
asked the Senate to make the bill the order for a future day. 
This request was granted and the bill was made the order for 
March ninth. The next day Davis of Kentucky proposed to 
have another question made the order for the same day. Sum- 
ner objected and reminded him that his bill was fixed for that 
day. Davis said it could wait; Sumner objected. At the ap- 
pointed time Davis and Hendricks wished a postponement and 
Sumner consented to let it go over till March sixteenth, Davis 
saying that he wished to speak on it. -From March sixteenth 
till the eighteenth, it was crowded out by other business. On 
the eighteenth Davis was still not ready to speak. Sumner then 
gave notice that he would take every proper occasion to call up 
the bill and press its consideration. Until April eighteenth, the 
Senate was occupied with other business, especially the Thir- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitution. On that day Sumner 
moved to take it up, but the appropriation bill had precedence. 
On the next day, on his motion, the Senate voted to take it 
up and having been read three times, without a division and 
without a word of debate it was ready for passage. Foster, of 
Connecticut, then wished to be heard. Hendricks spoke against 
it. Sherman, of Ohio, then declared he was opposed to repeal- 
ing the law of 1793 and was opposed to the bill as it stood, 
because it would repeal that law, as well as the law of 1850. 
He wished therefore to amend it. Finding it had passed this 
stage, he moved to reconsider the motion ordering it to be en- 
grossed and read the third time. This motion to reconsider 
was carried. Sherman then moved to amend the bill, by ex- 
cepting from the repeal the act of 1793. He urged that this 
law had been held constitutional. Sumner spoke against the 
exception and pointed out that it had never been sugge^ed to 
the court, when considering its constitutionality, that this law 
of 1793 made no provision for the trial of the case of the fugi- 
tive slave, by jury, and upon that being pointed out, one of the 
judges who rendered the decision, had declared he would con- 
sider its constitutionality still an open question. Sumner be- 
lieved they were all alike unconstitutional. Eeverdy Johnson 



^ 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 477 

argued that they were all constitutional. Sumner especially 
regretted Sherman's interference at this late day, when the bill 
was just ready to be passed and that now after all these years 
of discussion it should be thought necessary still to discuss it. 

Reminding the Senate of his own part against these laws, he 
said : " Often, in other times, I have discussed these questions 
in the Senate and before the people ; but the time for discussion 
is passed. And permit me to confess my gladness in this day. 
I was chosen to the Senate for the first time immediately after 
the passage of the Act of 1850. By that election, if I received 
from the people of Massachusetts any special charge, it was to 
use my best endeavor to secure the repeal of this atrocity. I 
began the work in the first session I was here. God grant that 
I may end it to-day ! " 

The amendment of Sherman carried. Thereupon Saulsbury, 
of Delaware, moved another amendment, which was lost. Then 
Conners, of California, declared he was no longer in favor of 
the bill as thus amended and moved to lay it on the table. 
Sumner urged him to withdraw his motion and vote for the bill, 
for the reason that they still got something by it. Conners 
refused, but his motion to lay on the table was lost. April 
twentieth the bill was proceeded with, when Foster spoke for it 
as amended. Brown, of Missouri, spoke and concluded by de- 
claring he could not vote for it, as amended. Still other 
amendments were proposed ; finally the consideration of it was 
adjourned. Sumner was discouraged to pass it, in that form ; 
and preferred to wait for the action of the House. 

On June thirteenth, after much contention, the House passed 
a bill to repeal all the fugitive slave laws. June fifteenth it 
came to the Senate and Sumner moved its immediate passage. 
Hale, of New Hampshire, objected ; he wanted the time for 
other business. Powell moved its reference to the Judiciary 
Committee. This motion was lost. Sumner moved its refer- 
ence to the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen ; and this 
carried. Thereupon Sumner, having anticipated such action, 
and having already obtained authority from the Committee, to 
report it promptly and without amendment, did so and asked 
immediate action. But objection was made. 

On June twenty-first he moved to take it up and the motion 
was carried, but after some consideration, the Senate took a 
recess and it went over. The next day, Sumner moved to take 
it up again; but the motion was lost. At the evening session 
he again moved to take it up. Saulsbury thereupon moved to 
adjourn, with the exclamation : " Let us have one day without 
the nigger ! " His motion was lost. Reverdy Johnson then 



478 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

asked an adjournment, so Davis, of Kentucky, could speak. 
Sumner insisted that this business had been postponed again 
and again for Davis to speak. The motion to proceed was 
adopted. Then a motion for an executive session was made and 
debated and lost. Saulsbury moved a postponement ; lost. An- 
other motion for an executive session was made and lost. Then 
another motion to adjourn was made and lost. At last it was 
agreed that it should be reported without amendment and that 
Davis should have the opportunity to speak upon it the next 
day. This he did. Saulsbury moved then to strike out all after 
the enacting clause; lost. Johnson moved to amend so as to 
leave out the act of 1793 in force; this too was lost, the Senate 
thus reversing its former vote. Thereupon the bill was passed. 
It was approved by President Lincoln June twenty-eighth. 

Thus ended the Fugitive Slave Law for the repeal of which 
Sumner had striven so often and so earnestly. 

From this illustration, it will be seen how sternly and per- 
sistently he pressed his measures to the front and insisted upon 
their passage. Defeat never seemed to dishearten him. " Fail, 
Sir ! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail." If 
defeated to-day he was ready to renew the fight to-morrow. 
If crowded out then, he would press his measure again as soon 
as an opportunity offered. He was invulnerable against rid- 
icule or taunt or abuse. He had been abused so much that it 
may fairly be asked whether he did not, at times, feel a proud 
pleasure in social ostracism for the sake of measures he firmly 
believed to be right. Against such persistence as he showed, 
obstruction was useless. He was sure to wear out the party 
that undertook to wear him out. He believed these measures 
against slavery were right and he was ready to strike, and 
strike hard, and strike on persistently. 

But it must be confessed that his persistence sometimes 
angered his own party associates. Frequently they did not 
approve the measures he advocated. He strode on faster than 
they were sometimes prepared to follow, in the direction of 
equal rights. Yet they were not prepared to go on the record of 
the Senate as voting against some of these measures. 

Take for example his bill for the equal rights of colored peo- 
ple on the street cars of Washington and tlie District of Colum- 
bia. Separate cars had been provided for them. But largely 
through his instrumentality, clauses were inserted, in some 
companies' charters, forbidding such a distinction and requiring 
colored to be accorded the same treatment as white passengers. 
While this remedied the distinction, under tlie law, at least 
upon those lines, it did not as to the others. The exclusion 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 479 

still continued upon lines not thus restrained, to the incon- 
venience and sometimes the distress of colored passengers. He 
therefore persisted until at this session he procured the passage 
of a law forbidding such distinction upon any line. And when 
this law was not promptly obeyed, in one instance, he called the 
attention of the President of the offending Company to it and 
threatened if the offence was repeated to have its charter for- 
feited ; and in other instances brought the violations to the 
attention of the District Attorney. 

This persistency angered his associates. Powell of Kentucky 
declared : " The Senator's staple is this fanatical idea. He 
wants this little hobby to ride through Massachusetts on and 
to feed a fanatical flame there. He can fool nobody here with 
this kind of thing. Take the negro out of the Senator's vocabu- 
lary and rich as it is, it would be exceedingly barren." His own 
colleague Wilson was not in sympathy with him and his friends 
Sherman of Ohio and Trumbull of Illinois and Eeverdy John- 
son of Maryland all opposed his effort for equal rights in the 
street cars. But nothing daunted he went on; he had been 
opposed and abused often enough before, and he was not afraid 
of it now. He was opposed to all class distinctions and for 
maintaining the complete equality of all men in civil life and 
in the use of public service corporations. 

But to make this concession in Washington was an unpopular 
act, especially among the classes with whom Senators mingled. 
They reasoned, it was a matter of personal comfort, at best, 
that was directly concerned, though theoretically it might be 
true, that all men, white and black, should be accorded eqiial 
privileges in a public conveyance. They would gladly evade 
voting upon the question — might vote against it once, as if in- 
advertently. But he would bring them to the test, again and 
again, compel them to go on record, till they yielded and sup- 
ported his measure, unwilling captives to his tactics. But they 
laid it up against him in personal feeling. It deprived him of 
their sympathy and good fellowship. When the time came as 
in the struggle with President Grant, when his removal from 
the Committee on Foreign Eelations was proposed, such things 
counted against him. 

Sumner at this session proposed a measure that was also un- 
popular among some of his colleagues who desired patronage 
to maintain themselves in their places. He introduced a bill 
for the reform of the civil service. With the growth of the 
country the maintenance of this service had become a duty 
full of difficulty. The offices to be filled were so numerous and 
their importance to good service so great that with the limited 



480 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

op])ortunities of the Senators for knowledge of the fitness of the 
applicants, the original design that they should be filled by the 
President with the advice and consent of the Senate had been 
outgrown. It had been customary for the President to be 
governed in appointments by the recommendation of the chief 
elective officer of the district where the office was. The offices 
under the " spoils system " went as a reward for party work, 
without sufficient attention being given to fitness. Even the 
elective officers, seeing the number of places at their disposal 
much fewer than the wants of their supporters, found their own 
positions rendered trying. When General Butler declared that 
each District ought to have two Congressmen, one to attend to 
the offices and the other to perform the duties of legislation, he 
voiced a sentiment that many Congressmen appreciated. 

Sumner's bill was offered, on the thirtieth day of April, 
1864, and is the first public movement, on this since much 
vexed but now conceded reform. It proposed the appointment 
by the President, of a commission composed of three Exam- 
iners, appointments to the civil service to be made upon their 
recommendation, after an examination as to fitness, held in 
such places as should be designated, by public notice, the 
rank of the applicant to be assigned according to fitness, as 
shown by the examination, and after appointment the officer 
not to be removed, except for good cause shown. The essentials 
of the plan proposed in this early bill have been adopted in all 
subsequent legislation, upon the subject. The Civil Service is 
now one of the permanent branches of the Government. 

It was not his purpose to attempt to pass a bill at this ses- 
sion but only to call public attention to it and endeavor to create 
a sentiment in favor of a needed reform. It was read twice 
in the Senate and permitted to lie on the table and expire with 
the Congress. Its purpose was accomplished, however, in 
attracting attention to the subject and securing its discussion 
in the newspapers. 

At this session he renewed his efforts to have the exclusion of 
colored witnesses from the United States courts removed. He 
had sought twice before to have this accomplished, in 1861 and 
again in 1862. He had already secured the removal of this 
disability in the District of Columbia. On his motion the 
bill he introduced for this purpose was referred to the Com- 
mittee on Slavery and Freedom. Three weeks later it was re- 
ported by the committee, accompanied with a carefully pre- 
pared report in favor of its passage. This report was prepared 
by Sumner and occupies forty pages of his Works. It reviewed 
the condition of the law upon this question in each of the Slave 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 481 

States, called attention to its eccentricities and discussed the 
ground on which it is based. He insisted that it was a mere 
prejudice against persons of a particular color whether slave 
or free, fruitful of wrongs to the blacks whom it often placed 
without any legal protection against lawless outrages, and even 
permitted crimes against white persons to go unpunished. The 
absurdity of the rule of exclusion was apparent, he urged, when 
it was remembered that the testimony if admitted, would have 
to be weighed by white judges and juries, who might reject 
it, if their prejudice led them to believe that colored witnesses 
were untrustworthy. 

Failing to obtain a hearing for his measure, in any other 
form, Sumner moved it as an amendment to the Civil Appro- 
priation Bill of the session. Sherman urged him not to do so, 
after the experience of the night before, which had been spent, 
in the discussion of an irrelevant matter, with the thermometer 
at ninety-three degrees. He was sure it would provoke dis- 
cussion. Other Senators urged him to withdraw it, but he per- 
sisted. The amendment was agreed to and, with the appropria- 
tion bill, it passed and became a law. 

Saulsbury of Delaware was pointed in his opposition to it in 
the Senate. " I do not wish," he said " to say anything about 
the 'nigger* aspect of this case. It is here every day, and I 
suppose it will be here every day for years to come, till the 
Democratic party comes into power and wipes out all legisla- 
tion on the Statute books of this character, which I trust in 
God they will do soon." 

Under this amendment, the colored man was made as com- 
petent to testify in the United States courts as his white 
brother. In the slave States, until this time, colored persons 
were not competent to testify as witnesses. 

On the ninth of February, 1864, Sumner read in the Senate a 
petition of the Woman's National League, for universal eman- 
cipation, by act of Congress. Though originally prepared and 
circulated by women there was a duplicate of it, signed by men. 
The signers were above the age of eighteen. The petition was 
arranged by rolls, each roll representing a State, and they came 
from twenty-four states and Territories. It was called the 
*' Prayer of One Hundred Thousand," because signed by one 
hundred thousand names. Though memorable for numbers 
Sumner insisted that it was more memorable for the prayer, 
in which they united, — nothing less than universal emancipa- 
tion. So far as it was signed by women, he admitted it was 
simply a petition. But he added, " there is no reason so strong 
as the reason of the heart." After reading the prayer of tlie 



482 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

petition and some brief remarks, he moved its reference to the 
Committee on Slavery and Freedom. A debate ensued, but 
it ended in a reference to the Committee. 

Sumner was already committed to universal emancipation, 
but not by act of Congress. He did not believe that the simple 
guarantees of a law, passed by Congress and approved by the 
President, were sufficient. Slavery had for many years en- 
trenched itself behind certain clauses of the Constitution and 
though he believed that instrument when properly interpreted 
did not countenance it, he felt that its abolition should be guar- 
anteed by a constitutional amendment, forbidding slavery 
forever within the national domain. This would place the 
matter beyond the reach of an act of Congress. It could then 
be reached only by another amendment submitted, after a two- 
thirds vote of each House of Congress or the legislatures of 
two-thirds of the States, to be thereafter ratified by three- 
fourths of the States. This would not make it incapable of 
change, but it would make it as incapable of change as any 
thing could be, under our form of government. It would cer- 
tainly place it, beyond the reach of the law-making power 
alone; so that if change were contemplated the States and the 
people would have to be first consulted. This mode of emanci- 
pation would more than satisfy the " prayer of the one hundred 
thousand." 

The first known movement for constitutional emancipation 
had its origin with Sumner himself. On the morning of De- 
cember second, 1863, he was a passenger on the steamboat. 
Empire State, on Long Island Sound, bound from Fall River 
to New York, on his way, to the opening of Congress. With 
him, as a fellow passenger, was Henry C. Wright of Boston, 
on his way to a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society 
at Philadelphia. In the saloon of the vessel, Sumner sketched 
to Mr. Wright his plan of emancipation and with his own hand 
drew up a resolution : 

" That the voice of the people is heard through petitions to 
Congress and this Convention earnestly recommend that this 
voice be raised in petitions for an Amendment of the Constitu- 
tion, declaring that slavery shall be forever prohibited within 
the limits of the United States." 

Two days later, this resolution was presented, by Mr. Wright, 
to the American Anti-Slavery Society and was adopted by it, 
without a dissenting vote. 

On the fourteenth of December, 1863, amendments to the 
Constitution abolishing slavery were offered in the House by 
Ashley of Ohio and Wilson of Iowa and on the eleventh of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 483 

January following, Henderson, of Missouri, introduced a sim- 
ilar amendment, in the Senate. On February eight Sumner 
introduced another, in these words : 

" Everywhere within the limits of the United States, and- 
of each State and Territory thereof, all persons are equal be- 
fore the law, so that no person can hold another as slave." 

He moved that it be referred to the Committee on Slavery 
and Freedmen of which he was chairman. Trumbull objected, 
that it should go to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was 
Chairman and to which the amendment offered by Henderson 
had already been referred. Sumner assented, only requesting, 
that the Committee act promptly, in reporting. This was done, 
for on February tenth, only two days later, Trumbull reported 
a substitute for the two amendments, in these words ; 

" Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ex- 
cept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction." 

" Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this arti- 
cle by appropriate legislation." 

This is the form, in which it was finally adopted, and as it 
now stands in the (Constitution. But it was not adopted and 
made a part of the Constitution, for almost a year. A course 
of many vicissitudes awaited it. 

Sumner did not approve the language in which it was ex- 
pressed and gave notice of a substitute. By two other sec- 
tions, he proposed to strike out of the Constitution the clauses 
theretofore alleged to concern slavery; one, the clause in the 
third paragraph of the second section of article one, concern- 
ing the apportionment of Eepresentatives, " which shall be 
determined by adding to the whole number of free persons in- 
cluding those bound to a service for a term of years three-fifths 
of all other persons," so that with these words stricken out it 
should read, " Eepresentatives and direct taxes shall be ap- 
portioned among the several States, which may be included in 
this Union according to their respective numbers, excluding 
Indians not taxed ; " second, all of the third paragraph of the 
second section of article four, reading, " No person held to 
service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be 
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due." While the words "slave" or "slavery" 
nowhere appear in the Constitution, these two clauses had been 



484 ^^^E OF CHARLES SVMNER 

held to recognize the institution and make valid a fugitive slave 
law, and he, therefore, would have had them stricken out. 

Sumner did not like the words in the amendments as re- 
ported by the committee : " except as a punishment for crime 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." He argued 
that the committee had adopted these words, from the ordi- 
nance for the government of the North-West Territory, that 
there was a reason for them, when then used, because men could 
then be enslaved, in certain parts of the country, as a punish- 
ment for crime and it was not, by that ordinance, proposed 
to prohibit such a form of punishment. But, he argued that 
what was struck at here, was slavery as it existed, in the slave 
States, that what was meant was well known, that the words he 
wished stricken out were surplusage and created a doubt where 
there should be none. 

Trumbull replied, that the committee upon examination and 
discussion had adopted these words, that he did not know that 
he should have done so, but a majority of the committee 
thought they were the best words, that, at any rate, they would 
accomplish the purpose and he hoped Sumner would withdraw 
his objection. It was urged by Howard, a member of the Com- 
mittee on Slavery and Freedmen, that these good old Anglo- 
Saxon words, taken from the ordinance of 1787, had been re- 
peatedly adjudicated upon, so that their meaning was well un- 
derstood, by the public and the courts; and he united in the 
appeal to Sumner to waive a mere matter of form, rather than 
endanger the substance of the amendment. Sumner yielded 
to their appeals and withdrew his objections, though he 
afterwards regretted that he had not insisted on striking out 
the words, giving an implied sanction to slavery as a punish- 
ment for crime. He feared they would be made a pretext, for 
imposition, upon the freedmen of the South. Subsequent 
events have shown that his fears were not without foundation. 

Within the few years following the war, some laws were 
enacted by the States that had been in rebellion that are in- 
teresting in this connection. In Alabama, it was enacted that 
stubborn and refractory servants, and servants who idled away 
tlieir time, might be fined fifty dollars and, in default of pay- 
ment, might be hired out, by public outcry, on three days' 
notice, for six months. The reader will see, in such a statute, 
only a studied attempt to reduce the poor, ignorant freedman 
to slavery, for half the year, as a pretended punishment for 
crime. In the case of minors whose parents had not the 
means of supporting them, it was made the duty of the court to 
apprentice them ; and, if the minor was the child of a freedman, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 485 

the former owner of the minor was to have the preference. In 
the city of Mobile, vagrancy was made punishable with con- 
finement to labor not exceeding six months, the labor to be 
designated by the city officials for the city's benefit. The 
labor was to be done under the authority of an agent of the 
city who was to take the persons so sentenced from their con- 
finement, watch them while at labor and return them before 
sun-down. If the negroes met at night in assemblies to con- 
sider such abuses, under another statute they might be sen- 
tenced, for attending such an assembly, to pay a fine of fifty dol- 
lars and costs or, in default of payment, to work for the city, 
not exceeding six months. In this way labor was secured to 
repair the streets, sewers and wharfs, after the ravages of the 
war. In Florida, the vagrant might be hired out for twelve 
months by the County Commissioners, at public outcry, and 
pay the money thus secured into the county treasury, to meet 
the general expenditures of the county. In Louisiana, a bill 
was introduced, requiring every freedman to furnish himself 
a comfortable home and means of support, within twenty days, 
and on failure to do so, to be arrested and hired out, by public 
advertisement, for the remainder of the year. If he left his 
employer's service without consent, he was to be arrested and 
assigned to labor on some public work, without compensation, 
till reclaimed. Many other statutes from different States 
might be given, to illustrate the same tendency. 

The purpose of these laws was apparent. The South had 
failed in its struggle for slavery. But the spirit of the people 
that maintained the war was unbroken. Wliat they failed to 
accomplish by arms, they were now willing to do by legislation. 
These laws were all aimed at the freedmen, who were left poor 
and ignorant, as the result of two hundred years of bondage. 
It was now proposed, by systematic legislation, of this char- 
acter, to reduce them to a condition almost as abject and 
pitiable as before. Of course they were poor, of course they had 
no homes ; others had gathered where they had sown, during all 
these years, leaving them, out of the hard measure of their 
toils, only a bare subsistence. Of course they were ignorant; 
it had been a crime to teach them to read. Of course they 
were improvident and could not manage; it had been the law 
of their lives that others should manage for them and so man- 
age, too, that .they should have nothing. Yet the people that 
had reduced them to this condition now proposed to punish 
them for being so. It would have been much more to their 
credit, if pitying the condition of these freedmen, they had 
sought, in some systematic way, to improve it. 



486 LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 

Sumner's experience in the Senate, before the war, had 
taught him the resourcefulness of Southern statesmen, in leg- 
islation. He wished carefully to guard against it, in a matter 
of so much importance, as an amendment to the Constitution 
prohibiting slavery. The punishment prescribed in all such 
acts as enslaved men for a limited time was a qualified form 
of slavery. Yet it came, ostensibly at least, within the excep- 
tion that Sumner wished to have stricken out of the Thirteenth 
Amendment, as proposed by the committee, forbidding slavery 
" except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted." He would have had it without this 
exception. But in giving way to the preference of others, as 
to the form of expression, he said he consoled himself with 
the thought that, however expressed, the amendment would 
endure to be read with gratitude. 

As to the two clauses that Sumner wished to have stricken 
out of the Constitution, the first, as to the apportionment of 
Representatives, was subsequently taken out, by the Fourteenth 
Amendment, the second, as to the return of fugitives from 
service, remains in the Constitution. 

The joint resolution for the submission of the Amendment 
passed the Senate, on the eighth day of April, by the necessary 
two-thirds vote. It was not taken up in the House till the 
last day of May. A motion was then made to reject it, but this 
motion failed, after an exciting- debate lasting several days. 
When the vote on the resolution was taken on June fifteenth 
it failed to receive the necessary two-thirds. Seeing this, at 
the last moment, Mr. Ashley, one of its strongest advocates, 
changed his vote so as to be able to move a reconsideration of 
it. This he did the same day and had his motion entered on 
the journal, thus holding the resolution in suspense so it could 
be taken up, in the House, at the next session, and if passed 
there, not have to be voted on by the Senate. jSTo further 
action was taken on it, during this session. But President 
Lincoln in his message to Congress, at the opening of the next 
session, recommended its reconsideration and passage, adding 
that the result of the late election showed the people were 
favorable to it. On January sixth, 1865, it was taken up and 
the debate on it continued, with some interruption until Jan- 
uary thirty-first, when it received the necessary two-thirds vote. 

The vote was anticipated and a large audience of members 
and spectators was present to witness the result. As the call of 
the roll proceeded, a breath-like silence pervaded the chamber, 
everyone listening to catch the vote of the Member, as his name 
was called. All seemed to realize that the question, whether 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 487 

four million human beings should be restored to their birth- 
right of freedom, was a great one, which hung on the issue of 
the hour. The issue had been explicitly stated in the Republi- 
can platform, and Lincoln had been elected upon it, by an over- 
whelming majority. The battle fought over the whole country, 
at the polls, was now concentrated in this Chamber, for the final 
issue. True, the Republicans then elected had not yet taken 
office under that election, but it remained to be seen whether 
those still occupying these seats would bow to the decree of the 
people, whose will was to be supreme. Lincoln had plead with 
them to anticipate the action of the next Congress, that was 
now assured. He had reminded them of his own Proclamation, 
carrying freedom to the slaves of the states now in rebellion. 
With solemn words, he told them that, if it was ever made an 
Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another and not he 
must be made the instrument to perform it. The present 
House had voted down this Amendment once, it might do so 
again and thus delay, but it could not change the result. 
Would it meet the crisis ? 

When the voting commenced, it was found there were eight 
absentees, without pairs, all Democrats, such men as Daniel W. 
Voorhees and James F. Mc])owell of Indiana. It was as- 
sumed that they now favored the Amendment, though not pre- 
pared to so record their votes. As the roll-call proceeded, such 
men as Homer A. Nelson of New York and Wells A. Hutchens 
of Ohio answered, in its favor, until ten Democrats voted for 
it, who had not done so before. Wlien the roll-call was finished 
the joint resolution had more than the necessary two-thirds 
and the Amendment was ready to go to the States for ratifica- 
tion. When the result was announced, the scene was indescrib- 
able. Members sprang upon their seats, cheering and shout- 
ing, waving hats and hands and canes. The galleries answered 
back the shout. The whole chamber was in an uproar. All 
efforts to restore order were fruitless and the House, in spon- 
taneous recognition of the event, adjourned for the day. 

The necessary three-fourths of the States promptly ratified 
the Amendment. The result was formally announced by the 
Secretary of State December eighteenth, 1865, and the Amend- 
ment then became a part of the Constitution. Slavery was 
abolished. 

There was a reason for the wish of the Republicans to have 
the work of the next Congress thus anticipated. It hastened 
emancipation a year. The recent successes of the North, in the 
field, indicated that the end of the war was near. Negotia- 
tions for peace were likely to be entered upon, at any time. 



488 i^I^^ OF' CHARLES SUMNER 

When Congress opened, Sherman was on his victorious march 
to the sea. When the vote was taken in the House, he was 
leaving Savannah, for his advance through the Carolinas; 
Thomas had annihilated Hood's army at Nashville ; and Grant 
was holding Lee fast at Petersburg. If a proposition came, 
from the Confederate armies, to lay down their arms and, 
from the Confederate States, to return to their former allegi- 
ance, they would likely be met by the North, with open arms. 
In the joy of forgiveness, the guarantees of future peace might 
be overlooked. Those who believed, like Lincoln and Sumner, 
that there could be no permanent peace between the sections, 
while slavery continued, were anxious to see it destroyed and 
the legitimate fruits of the war secured by irreversible guar- 
antees, before the end came. This done, it was hoped that a 
peace then coming would be a permanent one. 

In this spirit, Sumner was busy upon other measures that 
concerned the colored race, while this Amendment was pending 
in the House and with the States, In answer to a suggestion 
of Sherman, in the Senate one day, that the Constitutional 
Amendment was the main proposition, Sumner retorted, " The 
main proposition. Sir, is to strike slavery wherever you can hit 
it and I tell the Senator he will not accomplish his purpose if 
he contents himself merely with a constitutional amendment." 
Sumner believed in the equality of the races before the law. 

He made a protracted struggle in the Senate to equalize the 
pay of colored troops. Some of them had enlisted under acts 
that had made no distinction between them and white soldiers. 
The white soldiers received thirteen dollars per month, but by 
an order of the War Department, the colored men were paid, 
under a subsequent act, only ten. It was a question of con- 
struction of the two laws. Sumner insisted, that all soldiers 
enlisted under one law, should be paid the same and that an 
act passed subsequently to their enlistment could not change the 
rights of the colored man. Some Massachusetts troops were in- 
terested and that State firmly convinced of the justice of their 
claim, Governor Andrew having assisted in their enlistment, 
offered to pay them the difference. But some of the troops de- 
clined to so receive it, insisting they were to be paid by the 
United States. The matter was first canvassed, by Sumner and 
Wilson, before the War Department, and Secretary Stanton, 
at last, became restive under their importunities. It was then 
brought before the Senate, in an effort to amend the law caus- 
ing the doubt. Sumner spoke several times upon it. The 
matter was finally referred by resolution, to the Attorney-Gen- 



LIFE OF CHARLES ISUMNER 489 

eral, who construed the law in favor of the colored troops and 
they were paid the same as white soldiers, who had enlisted 
with them. 

Another troublesome question upon which Sumner spent 
much labor at this time was the claims against the Government 
for French spoliations during the Eevolutionary War. It wag 
an old subject, that had often before troubled Congress, and 
was destined to trouble it still longer. The claims were in favor 
of private parties for damages done to American shipping, by 
cruisers and other armed vessels of France, in violation of the 
law of nations and existing treaties. Claims of the same kind 
had been made, by our Government, against other European 
nations and had been paid and the money thus received dis- 
tributed to those entitled. It was insisted that the Colonies had 
assumed the claims against France, in the adjustment made 
between the two countries, at the close of that war. This being 
disputed, the claims had never been paid. Forty-one times the 
subject, had been reported upon by Committees of the Senate 
and House, every time favorably, except in three of the earliest 
reports, the third, fourth and fifth. Among the eminent men 
who had made the favorable reports were Edward Livingston, 
Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Caleb Gushing, Charles J, 
Ingersoll, John M. Clayton and Rufus Choate. Sumner now, 
as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Eelations, went into 
the matter, with his customary thoroughness, and made a re- 
port of almost one hundred pages, in which he reviewed the 
whole subject and urged an appropriation of not exceeding five 
million dollars, to pay the claims. Three thousand extra copies 
of the report were ordered printed. It stands as the most ex- 
haustive discussion of the subject ever made. It was twice 
after, while Sumner was a member of the Committee, adopted 
as its report, on this subject, and so returned to the Senate ; and 
twice more, by the Committee, after Sumner's death. An ap- 
propriation was finally made for the payment of the claims and 
they were paid. 

The position of Sumner, upon another measure, at this 
Session, is interesting. He opposed the taxation of national 
banks, by the States, and offered an amendment to the law for- 
bidding any State tax upon them, except as to the real estate 
they might hold. He believed the taxation of these banks 
should be exclusively in the hands of Congress for fear the 
States, if the power of taxation were continued to them, might 
undertake, in some crisis, to destroy them. In this view, he 
was supported by Secretary Chase, in a communication ad- 



490 L'lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

dressed by him to the Senate Finance Committee, and by some 
Senators. But his amendment was voted down. The States 
have always had the right to tax these banks and experience has 
not yet shown that it was unwise to confer it upon them. To 
withdraw from State taxation the vast amount of capital in- 
vested in these institutions would transfer an undue burden to 
other classes of property. 

Late in the evening of Saturday, July second, a resolution 
was offered, proposing that Congress adjourn on the following 
Monday at noon. Sumner was opposed to the resolution and 
spoke against it. He reminded Senators that they were in the 
midst of a gigantic war and that important legislation still re- 
mained to be acted upon, that the army must be sustained and 
that measures for increased taxation should be debated, that 
$100,000,000 more was said to be needed and the people were 
asking taxation to provide for it. He reminded them that until 
1856 there had been no adjournment before August and that 
in 1850, the summer of the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, 
there had been no adjournment until September thirtieth; 
that, if for slavery Congress could endure the heat of summer 
and autumn, surely now, for the sake of freedom, they could 
continue in session longer than July fourth ; that the Senators 
were paid then eight dollars per day, now a salary of three 
thousand dollars per year; that it was humiliating to think 
that so long as they were paid a per diem, they were willing to 
stay late, but when paid by the year, they could not endure the 
heat. He sympathized with the wish of others to be away. If 
he were to take counsel of his own personal comfort he too 
would be glad to be gone. 

" Born on the sea-shore," he said, " accustomed to the sea 
air, I am lesg prepared than many of my friends to endure the 
climate here. I feel sensibly its sultry heats, and I pant for the 
taste of salt in the atmosphere. Nor am I insensible to other 
influences. What little remains to me of home and friendship 
is far away from here — where I was born. But home, friend- 
ship, and sea-shore must not tempt me at this hour." 

In that short expression : " What little remains to me of 
home and friendship is far away," is the first note that comes 
to us, in his works, of the sadness and loneliness of life that 
afterwards dwelt upon him with peculiar heaviness. It seemed 
at last to grow into a longing himself to be away. On the sixth 
of the preceding October, 1863, his brother George had died 
of paralysis. He had been first stricken, two years before. Of 
all the large family that had once gathered around his father's 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 491 

table, Sumner alone of the sons remained, and with him was 
his mother and only one sister, Julia. The sister was married 
and away in a home of her own. The feeling between Charles 
and George had been unusually tender. Charles had remained 
constantly near him during his last summer and was present 
when he died. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

RECONSTRUCTION UNDER LINCOLN — IN LOUISIANA AND ARKAN- 
SAS — NO BUST OF C. J. TANEY — NEGRO SUFFRAGE — FREED- 
MEN's BUREAU — RELATIONS OF LINCOLN AND SUMNER — 

Lincoln's death 

I have reserved until this place the mention of some work of 
Sumner on reconstruction. It would naturally have come ear- 
lier in strict order of time. But it will be more readily under- 
stood if the whole subject is treated together rather than in 
detached portions, as it came up, from time to time under the 
administration of Lincoln. 

As the war neared its close, the question of the relation of the 
seceding States to the Union became one of serious importance. 
It had first made its appearance early in the war when the loyal 
portion of Virginia, now West Virginia, refused to follow the 
rest of the State into rebellion. The question had seemed 
simple enough of solution then, for the nation was anxious to 
retain as much as possible of the slave territory from the Con- 
federacy ; and the part that remained was occupied by loyal 
people, akin in manners of life to the North. Congress had 
created it a separate State and admitted it to the Union. The 
new state, under a constitution, formed in accordance with the 
act of Congress had elected state officers; and Senators and 
Members of Congress to represent them, were sent to Wash- 
ington. These had presented their credentials and been ad- 
mitted to their seats. Coming when they did, they had 
strengthened the hands of Congress and the President. The 
men sent to Washington, save a certain leaning towards slavery 
to be expected from citizens of a slave State, were as loyal, and 
as cordial, in their support of war measures, as any they found 
there. The new State had given pledge of its sympathy for 
the North, by placing in its constitution a provision for the 
abolition of slavery and adopting it, by a popular vote. But 
notice, the admission of the new State had been by concurrent 
act of Congress and the President, not by the President alone. 

There was this difference, however, between the conditions in 
the admission of West Virginia and those attending the recon- 
struction of the States in secession. . The white people of tlie 
former were loyal, while those of the latter were not. The 
493 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 493 

former had refused to enter into the Rebellion, had held a 
separate convention, when the ordinance of secession was 
adopted and had repudiated this action on the part of the 
balance of the State. They had raised soldiers and had assisted 
in fighting the battles of the Union. The others had seceded 
and had raised and maintained armies to destroy the Union. 
They were in favor of slavery and had sought to perpetuate it. 
If compelled at last to give it up, it had only been at the point of 
the bayonet. If readmitted to representation in Congress, judg- 
ing from all the past, they would be found voting to cripple the 
efforts of the North to ameliorate the condition of the freedmen 
of the South. So far as they could, they would frustrate the 
efforts of the North, to restore the National authority in the 
South. It was feared that a warring, contentious, dissatisfied 
element would be restored to its old place in Washington. At 
home in the South, the colored people, without property and 
without influence would be left without any means of protec- 
tion. It was important that having been given their freedom, 
they should be given the means of protecting it. 

But President Lincoln was favorable to the reorganization 
of the States in rebellion, as fast as could be, consistently with 
the interests of the loyal North. A government in these States, 
by military oligarchy longer than required by the necessities of 
the case, would hardly be regarded favorably by an able lawyer, 
who had thought much upon constitutional questions; and it 
was abhorrent to his sense of justice. He was equally opposed 
to a government inaugurated there by political adventurers, 
who had followed the march of our armies and were ready to 
fill any positions of place or power that might be offered. He 
realized that we did not particularly need Members of Con- 
gress to assist in the work of legislation at Washington. That 
work was being done, in the main, satisfactorily enough to us 
But he would like to see citizens of the South, of sufficient 
courage to boldly assert that they were opposed to the mad 
career of rebellion, and these in sufficient numbers to organize 
and maintain loyal State governments. It would furnish ac- 
tual demonstration of the failing fortunes of the Confederacy. 

It will thus be seen that one of the President's purposes, in 
reconstruction, was to encourage loyal citizens of the South to 
assert their loyalty and aid in the re-establishment of their 
States. It would strengthen their position by awakening a 
feeling of loyalty in others. It would form a nucleus about 
which opposition to the Confederacy might unite, and aid in 
destroying its hopes of success. He well knew that many of the 
people of the South had not favored rebellion, but had been 



494 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

carried along in the mad career of their more powerful neigh- 
bors. Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Con- 
federacy, had been one of this class. He had advised against 
secession and had opposed it, in a strong public speech. He 
had only gone with his section, at last, because ho could not 
control it. There was no hope of course now of reaching him. 
But others of his class were not holding office under the Con- 
federacy and were not so prominently identified with the South. 
The President hoped that they might be reached and united 
and encouraged to do a good work in discouraging rebellion 
and bringing back the section to its former allegiance. He felt 
that there was a duty resting upon loyal Southern men that 
they should perform. He had a good deal of impatience with 
such of them as seemed to think the United States owed them 
protection and safety, but that they owed the United States 
nothing in return. 

Writing of one of this class living in Louisiana, who had com- 
plained that, though loyal, the trade and travel of such as him- 
self had been interfered with, by the blockade, Lincoln said : 
" Mr. Durant speaks of no duty, apparently thinks of none, 
resting upon Southern Union men. He even thinks it inju- 
rious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade 
and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a 
sail nor a pump, live merely as passengers ('dead-heads' at 
that) to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm and 
safely landed right side up. Nay, more, even a mutineer is to 
go untouched, lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental 
wound. Of course the Eebellion will never be suppressed in 
Louisiana, if the professed LTnion men there, will neither help 
to do it nor permit the Government to do it, without their 
help." 

It was over the State of Louisiana that the first question of 
reconstruction arose. In April, 1862, Admiral Farragut had 
reduced the Kebel fortifications on the lower Mississippi and 
captured New Orleans. Thenceforward the city was in tlie 
hands of the United States soldiers. Thus encouraged, the 
loyal citizens of Louisiana began to take thought of reorganiz- 
ing the State and, under a proclamation, by the Union Military 
Governor, for an election, had held one in December of that 
year. Benjamin F. Flanders and Michael Hahn, two old resi- 
dents of the State, were chosen Members of Congress. They 
had accordingly presented their credentials to that House and, 
without much discussion, it had admitted them to their seats. 
No Senators had been elected and, of course, each House being 
the judge of its own elections, the question of eligibility had 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 495 

not been discussed by tbe Senate. This was, however, the first 
crude elfort at real reconstruction and, as the sequel showed, it 
was a mistake. It was admitting reconstruction, at the instance 
of the President, and permitting it to be consummated, with 
Congress having no voice in it save to vote, each House, on the 
admission of Members, returned to it. The result of it was to 
mislead both President Lincoln and President Johnson, as to 
the extent of their powers. It led President Lincoln into be- 
lieving that reconstruction at the instance of the President 
would be recognized by the Senate and it brought about a strug- 
gle between him and that House, in which he was defeated. It 
misled President Johnson into believing that the authority of 
the President, as assumed by his predecessor and apparently 
conceded by the House, was greater than it was in reality. It 
caused the first clash between him and Congress, and in large 
measure contributed to his impeachment. 

The action upon the credentials of Flanders and Hahn had 
not, however, been taken without some misgivings on the part 
of the lower House. But, like the admission of West Virginia, 
it came at a time when the fortunes of the North were at the 
lowest ebb, just after the bloody battle of Antietam, when both 
Congress and the President were absorbed in providing men 
and money to meet the needs of the war. 

The next step was taken when President Lincoln, in his 
Message to Congress, in December, 1863, recommended a defi- 
nite plan of reconstruction. He accompanied his Message with 
a Proclamation setting forth his plan. It proposed a full par- 
don to all persons who had been in rebellion, except certain 
classes who were deemed especially guilty because they had 
abandoned judicial, congressional, naval or military offices 
under the United States to enter the Confederacy, or who had 
held high civil or military offices under the Confederate gov- 
ernment, or had been guilty of cruelty towards United States 
colored troops when captured, treating them otherwise than as 
prisoners of war. All persons not thus excepted from pardon 
were to be restored to citizenship upon their taking an oath to 
support and defend the Constitution and abide by all laws, and 
proclamations, made during the war respecting slaves, until leg- 
ally modified. If a sufficient number of such persons in any- 
State in rebellion, voted, to cast one-tenth of the vote that was 
cast at the Presidential election of 1860, the government thus 
established was to be recognized as that of the State. The Proc- 
lamation, however, provided that the eligibility of persons 
elected to the Senate and House must be determined by these 
Houses respectively. 



496 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

A change had now taken place in the fortunes of the North. 
Vicksbnrg had been captured by Grant and the Mississippi 
Eiver was now open from its source to its mouth and patrolled 
by Union gunboats. The Confederacy was divided in twain, 
the part of it that lay west of the Mississippi being completely 
separated from the rest and destined never to be reunited under 
that government. Gettysburg had been fought and won. These 
events, with the failing fortunes of tlie Confederacy elsewhere, 
were strengthening the hearts of Southern Union men. In 
Louisiana a convention was held and after that an election, 
whereby Michael Hahn was chosen Governor. Members of 
Congress were also elected. Arkansas had elected a Governor 
and Members of Congress. Both States accomplished this by 
the requisite ten per cent, vote and likewise adopted Constitu- 
tions abolishing slavery. Several States chose United States 
Senators. The Senators from Arkansas were the first to present 
their credentials at Washington and ask to be seated. The issue 
was thus fairly presented. Everything had been done in ac- 
cordance with the President's Proclamation. Would the two 
Houses of Congress acquiesce, and vote to seat the Representa- 
tives and Senators? President Lincoln, relying on the previous 
action of the lower House upon the credentials of Flanders and 
Hahn, believed they would. 

But the feeling of some of the Members had changed in the 
meantime. Within a few days after the publication of the 
President's Message and Pfoclamation, Sumner referring to 
the plan of reconstruction there set forth, wrote : " Any plan 
which fastens emancipation beyond recall will suit me," thus 
making emancipation the one single requisite in his eyes. On 
the eighth of February,— 1864, two months after the Proclama- 
tion, he introduced a series of resolutions in the Senate, for the 
purpose of defining its position upon the question of reconstruc- 
tion. In these resolutions he took the same position as in his 
letter to Bright and he made it emphatic that no reconstruction 
was to be considered that did not secure emancipation in the 
reconstructed States. In these resolutions he insisted that a 
solemn duty was cast upon Congress to see that no rebel State 
was prematurely restored * * * until all proper safe-guards were 
established, so that loyal citizens, including the new-made freed- 
men could not be molested * * * and especially that no man 
there could be made a slave." In the last of these resolutions! 
he defined how this freedom was to be secured : " the constitu- 
tion thereof must be so amended as to prohibit slavery every- 
where within the limits of the Eepublic." Here was eman- 
cipation to be secured by Constitutional Amendment, under the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 497 

supervision of Congress, in the reconstructed States before they 
should be allowed to retake their position as States. This was 
the highest ground that Sumner assumed, up to the time of 
President Lincoln's Proclamation. But note, , there was no 
mention in it of suffrage to the colored race, as one of the pre- 
requisites. Sumner himself had not yet advanced to this posi- 
tion. But he was travelling in this direction. 

On the thirtieth of March, 1864, the Senate was considering 
a bill already passed by the House, to provide a temporary 
government for the Territory of Montana, when Wilkinson, of 
Minnesota, moved to amend the clause relating to the qualifica- 
tion to vote. As the House had passed the bill, the qualification 
stood "every white male inhabitant." The amendment pro- 
posed was to make it "every free male citizen of the United 
States and those who have declared their intention to become 
such." A debate arose over this amendment. Eeverdy John- 
son said the word " citizen " as thus used was not applicable to 
" black men " because th6 Supreme Court had held in the Dred 
Scott case that a person of African descent is not a citizen. 
Wilkinson said he was willing to let the amendment stand as it 
was, let the decision of the Supreme Court be what it may. 
Sumner remarked that he hoped Congress would proceed, with- 
out respect to a decision that had disgraced the country and 
ought to be expunged from its jurisprudence. Johnson fol- 
lowed him at length in a eulogy of Chief Justice Taney, who 
had delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case and 
was from his own State. He took Sumner to task for his want 
of respect for the Supreme Court. Sumner replied that he had 
been taught that two and two made four and if a tribunal 
honored like that Court declared they made five he claimed the 
right to dissent, that he entered a standing protest against that 
"atrocious judgment" which was "as absurd and irrational 
as such a reversal of the multiplication table," that it "was 
false in law and also false in the history with which it sought 
to maintain its false law." Johnson had referred to the honored 
character of the Court and the great names that had been asso- 
ciated with it in the past. This reference to the old Court 
touched a chord that had vibrated, in his youthful days, when 
on his first visit to Washington, Judge Story had opened to 
him an association with the Members of that body, and Sumner 
replied : 

" But the Senator wandered into eulogy of that old Supreme 
Court, now departed, when Marshall was Chief Justice, and 
from the past claimed consideration for the present. Sir, I 
have been no cajeless student of that court in its great and 



498 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

palmy days. I know the learning, wisdom and ability of its 
judgments, and am proud that there are such pages in the 
jurisprudence of my country. My sentiments towards tlie court 
of that day are warmed, also, by personal experience. It is 
among the cherished reminiscences of early life, that I was 
privileged to know, as a youth might know, the illustrious 
magistrate, whom the Senator praises so well. He received me 
at his table, and allowed me to accompany him in his morning 
walks to the court-room. He was a venerable character. But 
I pray the Senator not to claim for the Dred Scott decision 
any of the reverence justly belonging to his name. There is no 
question of tribute to Chief Justice Marshall, or respect for the 
tribunal while he presided over it. The Dred Scott decision 
is more noticed from contrast with all that is good and great 
in the decisions of other days. It is sad that the tribunal that 
had established such an authority among us should do an act 
by which its authority has been endangered." 

Johnson replied insisting he had not wished to offend Sumner 
and confessing his personal regard for him as well as acknowl- 
edging the courtesy he had received at his hands. But he still 
insisted that he must place the authority of Chief Justice 
Taney higher than Sumner upon a question of constitutional 
law. Hale, of New Hampshire, to the merriment of the Senate, 
added that he would have to differ from Sumner, that while 
he did not think any better than he did of the Dred Scott deci- 
sion and agreed also that it was an outrage upon the civiliza- 
tion of the age and a libel upon the law, he could not agree with 
Sumner in tliinking it was a disgrace to the Supreme Court of 
the United States. To tliis length had one decision carried 
Senators in their estimate of the court. The conclusion gravely 
reached by so high a court that a man by reason of his color 
could not be a " citizen " seems amusing still. 

Chief Justice Taney died, during the coming recess of Con- 
gress. At the following session, a joint resolution for a bust of 
him, to be placed in the Supreme Court Room, was introduced 
by Trumbull, of Illinois. It was vigorously opposed by Sum- 
ner, Wilson, Hale and Wade ; but was supported by Johnson, 
Trumbull and Carlile of West Virginia. The debate over it 
was exceedingly acrimonious ; and personalities were indulged 
in, on both sides. The proposition was opposed, on the ground 
of the Dred Scott decision ; which was characterized " as the 
greatest crime in the judicial annals of the country." Johnson 
believed the decision was right and defended it. Sumner re- 
plied that in listening to Johnson he was "reminded of a 
character known to the Roman Church who always figures at 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 499 

the canonization of a saint as the Devil's Advocate " ; and added 
that " Taney should never be recognized as a saint by any vote 
of Congress," if he could prevent it. It was apparent that the 
opposition, under Sumner's lead, would defeat it; and it was, 
therefore, abandoned. The incident illustrates the height feel- 
ing was running at the time, on the question of slavery. 
Though undoubtedly wrong in this decision, Chief Justice 
Taney was a wise and able judge, who as the head of the court 
for twenty-eight years, one of the longest careers in its his- 
tory, had added to its renown. The vote of a bust did not neces- 
sarily mean an endorsement of all his work. The busts are 
placed there simply as memorials of the deceased. Nine years 
later, when feeling had softened and all who had opposed the 
resolution were gone from the Senate, save Sumner alone, and 
he was detained from his seat by sickness, a resolution to place 
in the Court Room busts of Taney, and Chase who had recently 
died, was passed unanimously. The Dred Scott decision had 
never been formally reversed by the court, but no one regarded 
it as binding. Sumner himself had moved the admission of 
the first colored attorney to the bar of that court and the court 
had admitted him to practice, thus affirming the conclusion, 
that others had reached, that the black man was a " citizen." 

Wilkinson was therefore safe enough, when he declared he 
was willing to let his amendment to the bill to provide a govern- 
ment for the Territory of Montana stand, as entitling " free 
male ^ citizens ' " to vote. The amendment proposed by him 
was adopted by the Senate; and the bill was then passed as 
amended. But the House refused to concur in the amendment. 
A bill was finally passed by both Houses limiting the right to 
vote substantially as first proposed to " white male inhabitants." 
So the first battle for colored suffrage was lost. 

The question next came up when the Senate had before it, 
a bill to change the charter of the city of Washington. Cowen 
of Pennsylvania moved to amend the bill, by inserting the word 
" white " before '* male," so as to confine the right to vote in the 
city to white male citizens. Sumner spoke against the amend-j 
ment, saying that the refusal of this right was an odious prej-l 
udice against the black man, bequeathed by slavery. He in- 
sisted that in the early days of the Eepublic black men had 
been allowed to vote. He called attention to the decision of 
the Supreme Court of jSTorth Carolina, found in 4 Devereaux 
and Battle Eeports at page 25 where the court says that " it 
is a matter of universal notoriety that under it (the original 
constitution of the State) free persons without regard to color 
claimed and exercised the franchise until it was taken away 



500 J^lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

from free men of color a few years since by our amended 
constitution." " Her most eminent magistrate," said Sumner, 
" the late Mr. Justice Gaston, accomplished as a jurist and as a 
man, whom I remember well, in most agreeable personal inter- 
course, laid down the law of his State in these emphatic words." 
This famous Judge had himself, as a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention, of his State, opposed the proposition to de- 
prive free colored men of the right to vote. Sumner had met 
him at Montreal, in 1836, when on an excursion in Canada. 
He declared that he did not think any one on the floor of the 
Senate could feel humbled, if his judgment was postponed to 
that of Judge Gaston of Xorth Carolina, who had declared that, 
according to the constitutional law of human rights, colored 
persons are citizens. 

Sumner's mind upon the question of suffrage was now made 
up. " I shall deem it my duty," he said, " to vote against all 
propositions creating any discrimin^tion of color. At this 
moment of revolution, when our country needs the blessing of 
Almighty God and the strong arms of all her children, this is 
not the time for us solemnly to enact injustice." 

With this, the bill to change the charter of Washington was 
dropped. But on the twenty-fourth of May, 1864, two weeks 
after Sumner made this declaration, Wade, of Ohio, offered a 
joint resolution to improve the registration law of Washington. 
It retained the old exclusion on account of color. Sumner 
offered an amendment, to forbid this exclusion. Wade said it 
was not his purpose to go into the question of suffrage, but 
simply to secure a needed change in the law. Sumner answered 
that it continued the old rule founded on color and that he 
could not sanction it, that he would regret to see his amend- 
ment defeat the bill, as it was suggested it would, for he sin- 
cerely wished its passage, but he could see no reason for a dis- 
crimination of color, if white persons were deprived of their 
rights, by a failure to pass the bill, so were colored persons, by 
a failure to pass his amendment. And he asked with some 
point, "which has been kept out the longest? I am for the 
rights of both to the end that we may have at last, in the 
national capitol. Equality before the law." He again expressed 
the determination to miss no opportunity to assert the rights 
of the oppressed race. Mr. Harlan moved to add a limitation, 
granting the right of suffrage to those colored men, who had 
borne arms, in the service of the country and had been honor- 
ably discharged. But both propositions to grant the right to 
vote to colored men were voted down and the resolution as orig- 
inally proposed by Wade, was adopted, thus defeating the sec- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 501 

ond effort for colored suffrage. The opponents of it and those, 
who, like Wade, believed in it, but thought it inopportune, to 
press it at this time, united to defeat it. Sumner was for it, in 
season or out of season. He was. thoroughly in earnest and was 
now the recognized leader upon this question in the Senate and 
was destined to so continue, until its final triumph. 

I have dwelt at length upon these early movements for 
universal suffrage, because it will be seen that they were soon to 
play an important part in the question of reconstruction. 
Sumner had not yet insisted on it, as an essential condition to 
be imposed upon the rebel States, before they could resume their 
place as States, but he soon did, and he maintained this posi- 
tion, even against both of the Presidents, Lincoln and John- 
son, till he succeeded. It was one of his greatest labors and like- 
wise one of his greatest triumphs. Sumner was the cham- 
pion of the rights of the colored race in the Senate. He was 
opposed to all discriminations against them and in favor of 
whatever could tend to uplift them and improve their condi-v 
tion. He believed that they should be given the power to help 
themselves and encouraged and instructed in the use of it._ 

As illustrating his labor to this end there may be mentioned 
the creation of the Freedman's Bureau, by a law passed at th^ 
close of the session of Congress; in March, 1865. It grew out 
of the new condition of the colored people of the South, who 
had been freed by the President's Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion. They were relieved from all obligation to labor for their 
former masters and yet were without the means of sustaining 
an existence. Their only capital was their labor. Yet in many 
places their masters had abandoned their plantations before the 
inroads of the Union armies and these colored people were left 
to starvation. There were too many of them to be supported 
by public charity. It would have been the worst of policy to 
have them so supported, if they could be. Some of them had al- 
ready got the impression, that the Government, in the fur- 
therance of its good work, was to furnish each colored man 
" forty acres of land and a mule," and were disposed to wait 
for this distribution. The need was to furnish them work and 
protect them in it, from the greed of employers, until they could 
become adjusted to their new condition and learn to take care 
of themselves ; where the land had been abandoned set them to 
work upon it and aid them to make a living for themselves. It 
was such work as this that the Freedman's Bureau sought to 
do. Sumner called it, " a bridge from Slavery to Freedom." 

A bill to establish such a bureau had been passed by the 
House as early as March first, 1864. The next day it came to 



502 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the Senate and was referred to the committee on Slavery and 
Freedmen of which Sumner was chairman. From March imtil 
the last of May, three months, the committee was occupied in an 
investigation of the subject. No less than nine different proj- 
ects were laid before the committee, some by eminent citizens 
interested in the freedmen, such as Eobert Dale Owen of In- 
diana, John Jay of New York and E. L. Pierce of Massa- 
chusetts. Defects were pointed out in the House bill. The re- 
sult of the whole was a new bill drafted by Sumner and reported 
by his committee. It provided for the care of such persons only 
as had once been slaves, not for persons of African descent gen- 
erally, and it sought to secure them labor in such places as 
would be congenial to them, but prevented any system of en- 
forced labor by requiring contracts between them and their em- 
ployers to be attested before public officials. It looked to secur- 
ing them the opportunity to labor, under contracts well guarded 
by the friendly advice of agents of the Government. After long 
and acrimonious debates, and many attempts to defeat, amend 
and postpone, after conference committees of the House and the 
Senate, to trace which would be fruitless, except to illustrate 
Sumner's persistence and ability, the measure was finally 
passed, and approved by the President, on the third of March, 
1865. It created a department that was destined to do much 
good and likewise encounter much criticism, until its purpose 
was served and it was abolished. 

Keconstruction came up again, in the Senate, on June tenth, 
1864, when Lane of Kansas brought in a joint resolution for 
the recognition of the free State Government of Arkansas. 
Sumner oj)posed the resolution in a speech since published, 
under the title : " Make Haste Slowly." In closing he coun- 
selled prudence, urging Senators, that while they made haste, 
to let haste be governed by wisdom and caution and not with 
the sacrifice of all safeguards for the future. At the same time 
he reminded the loyal people of Arkansas that they should not 
be discouraged, but remember their country was with them, al- 
though their time had not yet come, that " they also serve who 
only stand and wait." In this speech he took the broad ground 
that the readmission of Arkansas at this time would be un- 
reasonable and dangerous. The people that were asking it had 
until recently been acquiescing in rebellion, some of them taking 
an active part in it and were at best only a small minority of 
the actual voters of the state. To grant them two Senators and 
the representation of Arkansas in the House, and Electoral 
•College where their votes might determine the choice of a 
President, would be subversive of the rights of the other States 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 503 

and of the principles of the Constitution. He argued that 
President Lincoln's proclamation had never promised them such 
privileges, but, on tlie contrary, had been careful to disclaim 
any such purpose, expressly saying, that each House of Congress 
must determine whether the members sent from any State 
should be admitted, that the President only issued such a proc- 
lamation as Commander of the armies and that the State 
Government that issued from it could only be, like its source, 
military in character and consequently only provisional or tem- 
porary, until it received the sanction of Congress, that the two 
Houses of Congi-ess must act together and with the President in 
legislating upon the subject so that whatever was done would be 
harmonious. It would not do to have Eepresentatives admitted 
to the House and Senators denied admission to the Senate so 
that though coming from the same State, they might be like 
the famous twins. Castor and Pollux, in Grecian mythology, 
one of whom was translated to Olympus while the other was 
left upon earth. 

Sumner had some weeks previously offered a resolution em- 
bodying his plan of reconstruction. It was, that a State pre- 
tending to secede from the Union, and battling against the 
National Government to maintain this pretension, must be 
regarded as a Rebel State, subject to military occupation, and 
witliout title to representation in the Senate, until it had been 
readmitted by a vote of both Houses of Congress; and the 
Senate should decline to entertain any application to seat 
Senators from any such Eebel State, until after such vote of 
both Houses of Congress. This was offered, in the Senate, when 
it had under consideration the credentials of claimants as 
Senators from Arkansas. When Lane moved that his resolu- 
tions for the recognition of Arkansas be referred to the Judi- 
ciary committee, Sumner moved that his resolution also be 
referred to the same committee. The committee reported 
adversely upon both and the claimants were not admitted to 
seats in the Senate. 

The subject of reconstruction came up in the Senate again 
on the first of July, only three days after this adverse report 
of the committee, this time on a bill introduced in the House 
by Henry Winter Davis. By the bill a Military Governor 
was to be appointed by the President for each Rebel State and 
as soon as resistance to the United States ceased in the State, 
this Governor was to make an enrolment of the white male 
citizens of the State and submit to them an oath to support the 
Constitution. If one-half of them took this oath, he was to 
order an election to a constitutional convention. If this con- 



504 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

vention declared its submission to the Constitution of the 
United States and also adopted a constitution for its State, ex- 
cluding from the Legislature or office of Governor and from the 
right to vote for either, all who had held a civil office, other than 
ministerial, or military, above the rank of Colonel, under the 
Confederate Government ; and forbidding slavery or the pay- 
ment of any debt created in aid of the Rebellion ; and such 
constitution was adopted by a majority of the voters already en- 
rolled ; and this fact was certified to the President, he should, 
with the consent of Congress, recognize the State government as 
competent to elect Senators and Representatives. 

An amendment was offered to this bill when it came to the 
Senate, after its passage by the House, to strike out the word 
" white," so as to include among the voters all male citizens 
of the United States. This amendment received only five 
votes, Sumner's one of them, and had twenty-four against it. 
Brown, of Missouri, then offered, as a substitute for the bill, 
another simply providing, as had been proposed by Sumner, 
that a Rebel State should not vote for Senators, Representatives 
or Electors, until the suppression of the insurrection nor until 
such State's return to obedience be declared by proclamation of 
the President, issued by virtue of an act of Congress. 

Sumner offered as an amendment an additional section that 
the Proclamation of Emancipation so far as it freed the slaves 
of the States in rebellion be enacted as a statute and as a rule 
and article for the government of the military and naval forces. 
He wished emancipation to have the sanction of Congress as 
well as of the President. It was assumed he said that emanci- 
pation would never be recalled, but who could tell the vicissi- 
tudes of elections. The proclamation was a military measure 
of the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and nav^, 
proclaimed as " a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing 
the Rebellion," adopted, " upon military necessity." It miglit 
be argued it was a temporary measure, to meet an emergency. | 
Who could look far enough into the future to see what other 
proclamation might thereafter be issued, perhaps, by some | 
other President? He " would make the present sure and fix it | 
forever and immortal," not leave it to depend upon the will of 
any one man, however great. The amendment to the Consti- 
tution had not yet been ratified. He would place it in the Con- j 
stitution if he could, but if that should fail he would at least '• 
have it safeguarded by an act of Congress. His amendment 
was, however, voted down, some of its friends feeling that it 
ought not to be attached to this bill for fear it would defeat 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 505 

it. But the substitute offered by Brown of Missouri, was 
adopted by the Senate. 

The House of Representatives refused to concur in Brown's 
substitute. The Senate on the last day of the session, passed the 
bill introduced by Henry Winter Davis in the House and re- 
ported to the Senate by Wade of Ohio. But the President re- 
fused to sign it, and so it failed to become a law. If it had 
become a law, it would have dashed the pledges President 
Lincoln had held out to the Eebel States, in his proclamation, 
inducing them to reorganize the States and send Senators and 
Eepresentatives. The bill required one-half of the voters to 
unite to form a state government ; the President's proclamation 
was satisfied with one-tenth. His was familiarly known among 
Congressmen as "the ten per cent, plan." The bill required 
one method of ascertaining these voters, by registration and one 
form of oath to be taken by them ; the proclamation required 
a different method of ascertaining the voters, " by guess," the 
advocates of the bill said, and a different oath. The bill for- 
bade Electors for President to be chosen, in these States, while 
the proclamation permitted it and the advocates of the bill 
said, " threatened the country with a civil war to exclude them." 

The President published a statement of his reasons for re- 
fusing to sign the bill, treating it as a plan of reconstruction of- 
fered by Congress and saying that having already proposed one 
plan, he was unwilling to inflexibly commit himself to another. 
He was also unprepared to set at naught what had been done in 
Louisiana and Arkansas and thus discourage their loyal citi- 
zens from farther effort. Davis of the House and W^ade of the 
Senate, the chairmen of the committees, that were responsible 
for the bill, prepared and published a protest against the Presi- 
dent's action, which took the form of a trenchant reply to his 
statement. The only effect of their action was to defeat the 
renomination of Davis to Congress, thus permanently retiring 
a brave and brilliant man from public life, for before the next 
election he was dead. The people were with the President, be- 
lieving that any contest betwen him and Congress over this 
question in the' present condition of the country, would be a 
mistake. The whole subject went over to the next Congress. 

The President, however, had carried his point. He kept 
the subject of reconstruction, in his own hands and out of the 
control' of Congress. During the recess of Congress, he in- 
structed the military officers stationed in Arkansas and Lou- 
isiana to sustain the governments that had been organized under 
tis proclamation. It was a subject in which the President felt 
much interest. The prediction had been made in Europe and 



5Qg LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

used to our prejudice, that even though the Rehellion were 
suppressed, the feeling in the South was so great that the two 
sections could never be reunited, that the South, if kept in the 
Union, could only be governed as a conquered province. The 
President wished to prove the contrary by showing that even 
during the existence of the war, there was a portion of the pop- 
ulation of the South devoted to the Union. This portion he 
wished to develop into a positive force for the Union and in- 
crease in numbers. His wish may have carried him too far. 
Contrary to his habit, he assumed authority that did not seem 
to belong to his office and established a precedent which, when 
followed by his successor, led to a notable contest, in which it is 
now generally conceded President Johnson was wrong. It is, 
however, just as generally believed, that such a contest never 
would have occurred, if President Lincoln had lived. But 
however politic it may have been to develop and demonstrate a 
loyal sentiment in the South, these States were far from being 
prepared to resume their places as States with the power to cast 
their full vote, in the Electoral College to choose Presidents, 
and in Congress to pass laws. Too much of them was still in 
the Eebellion to be all counted as if in the Union. 

Sumner while differing from the President had so far not 
antagonized him. In his speech, " Make Haste Slowly," he 
had treated the plan of reconstruction set out in the President's 
proclamation as a suggestion merely and as not intended to be 
binding upon either him or Congress. . He had talked the 
subject over privately with him, more than once, and had ad- 
vised moderate action. He had especially urged that there be 
no contest allowed between the Executive and Congress over 
the question. It was indeed fortunate that the bill was passed 
so late, for with the feeling there was among Members, over his 
failure to approve it, a contest might have been precipitated, 
if Congress had still been in session. The Members having 
separated and being among the people, who were taking the 
side of the President, opportunity was given for their resent- 
ment to cool, before they reassembled. Many of them expected 
trouble when they met and the President's Message was pre- 
sented. But the President, with the wise caution that was so 
characteristic of him, avoided all reference to it in his Message. 

There was an apparent indisposition to open the subject up 
in Congress, knowing the want of agreement between the Presi- 
dent and that body. But kindred subjects kept appearing. 
On February fourth, Sumner offered a series of resolutions to 
declare the rule for ascertaining the three-fourths of the States 
required for the ratification of a constitutional amendment.- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 507 

The resolution declared that the participation of the Rebel 
States was not necessary, that as in proposing by Congress of 
the Thirteenth Amendment to the States as well as in all recent 
acts of Congress and all recent treaties, the vote had been deter- 
mined simply upon the basis of the representation at the time 
in the two Houses, so must the three-fourths required for ratifi- 
cation of an amendment be founded on the simple fact of rep- 
resentation in the Government of the country and the support 
of it. In other words he declared that the Eebel States 
were not to be counted as States in determining whether 
the necessary three-fourths of the States had ratified the 
Amendment. 

Two days later he submitted in the Senate an Amendment to 
the Constitution apportioning Representatives in Congress ac- 
cording to voters. The Constitution provided that Representa- 
tives should be apportioned among the several States according 
to their respective numbers, which should be determined by 
adding to the whole number of free persons, three-fifths of all 
other persons. The " three-fifths " thus mentioned had been 
held to mean slaves. Thus the South had always been allowed 
Representatives for three-fifths of its slaves. Now that these 
slaves had been freed in the Rebel States, if restored to State- 
hood these States would be allowed representation on all their 
free colored population and yet none of it be allowed to vote. 
This would give them an unjust advantage in the apportion- 
ment. Theretofore the South had only been allowed representa- 
tion on three-fifths of its slaves. Manifestly the colored men 
should be allowed to vote or they should not be allowed repre- 
sentation. IJence Sumuer proposed that Representatives should 
be apportioned according to voters. 

It was hoped that the refusal to the Rebel States of any voice 
in the ratification of constitutional amendments, and especially 
of that one Just pending abolishing slavery, would produce a de- 
sire for reconstruction and hasten the end of rebellion. It was 
likewise hoped by Sumner that the correction of the basis of 
representation, denying the right to count the colored people, if 
they were not allowed to vote, would lead to the grant of that 
right to them. 

Sumner argued that it was a great thing to be a State with 
the privileges of representation in Congress and the Senate and 
in the Electoral College. Such privileges ought not to be 
lightly conferred, and they should be guarded carefully against 
the approaches of those in* actual rebellion or in covert hostility 
to the Union. He insisted that it was also a great thing to be 
a Senator of the United States with all the powers and privi- 



508 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

leges, legislative, diplomatic and executive, appertaining to the 
office and the question whether these were to be recognized 
who were returned as Senators by States, whose people were 
yet supporting armed opposition to the Union, was a matter of 
grave importance to the whole country. Whether a State in 
armed rebellion could have representation upon the floor of the 
Senate was a great constitutional, practical and political ques- 
tion. Could a small portion of a State, the balance of which 
was at that very moment confessedly in armed rebellion, be 
admitted to equal privileges with the great States, for example 
of New York and Pennsylvania? Yet such were the questions 
that were constantly recurring when the subject of recon- 
struction was approached. A curious illustration occurred at 
this session when the credentials of Joseph Segar were pre- 
sented to the Senate, as a Senator from Virginia. He was ap- 
pointed by a State government sitting at Alexandria. It was 
seriously said that the body that undertook to send him was 
little more than the Common Council of Alexandria, a little 
city, and a suburb of Washington. Sumner promptly opposed 
his admission and moved the reference of his certificate to a 
committee. He was astonished to find a strong sentiment with 
certain Senators against his motion, which revealed itself in the 
discussion. It was urged that Sumner himself had entered, 
" with a certificate from a body of men, in Boston, little more 
in number and character than the Common Council of that 
city." If that be true answered Sumner, then it was " the duty 
of the Senate before receiving my credentials to inquire into 
their origin." The debate proceeded till Sherman, of Ohio, 
moved that the credentials of Segar be laid on the table. It was 
carried by an emphatic majority; and the claim to a seat was 
never prosecuted farther. 

The Senate's struggle over reconstruction, at this session, 
commenced when, Trumbull, as Chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, reported a resolution to recognize the new State 
government of Louisiana, as entitled to all the rights of a State 
government, under the Constitution of the United States. This 
government had been organized in accordance with the procla- 
mation of President Lincoln. He had advised it and was in 
frequent consultation with those under whose direction it had 
been organized. He directed the military officers in that dis- 
trict under whose command the initial steps were taken. Some 
of the men elected were his confidential friends and trusted 
correspondents on whom he relied for the success of his meas- 
ures, in Louisiana. The President was much interested in the 
recognition of the new government. During the struggle which 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 509 

followed, it was freely cliaiTjed that Trumbull who reported 
the resolution for its recognition and now moved to take it up 
for consideration had been " miraculously converted." He had 
opposed the recognition of Arkansas and the reception of the 
credentials of its Senators, and he did have a conference with 
President Lincoln about Louisiana after the opening of the 
session and it was- supposed the President had then pressed him 
to move for this recognition. General Banks, commanding that 
department, came on to Washington and remained some months 
after the session opened and advocated the recognition. Every- 
thing pointed to the deep interest the President took in the suc- 
cess of the measure. This made Senators loath to openly 
antagonize it. 

Sumner's mind was now made up on two questions. He be- 
lieved first, that no reconstruction should take place without 
congressional action, that it should not be brought about by 
the President alone, and, second, that he would agree to none 
that did not recognize the right of colored men to vote. He 
would consent to no discrimination beween the two races. To 
the unqualified admission of Louisiana as proposed, he was 
unalterably opposed. He was so much opposed to it that he 
was determined to defeat it by whatever constitutional means 
lay in his power, if it became necessary to use them. He con- 
sidered it so dangerous that he was determined that the regular 
appropriation bills of the session should go unpassed, if it be- 
came necessary to consume the balance of the session in dilatory 
tactics to defeat it. 

When the motion was made to proceed to consider the resolu- 
tion, Sumner moved as a substitute, that Senators and Repre- 
sentatives should not be elected to Congress from a State in 
rebellion until the President proclaimed all armed hostility to 
the Government within the State had ceased nor until its people 
had adopted a Constitution not repugnant to that of the United 
States and its laws, nor until by a law of Congress such State 
shall have been declared entitled to such representation. This 
substitute was lost, only eight voting for it, while twenty-nine 
were against it. When the subject came up, on the next day, 
Sumner sought to interpose another bill for consideration, urg- 
ing that it had been more considered and they were better pre- 
pared to vote on it. He was pressing the change strongly ; and 
the time for adjournment was drawing near. Conners urged 
him not to waste the fifteen minutes left, in discussion, but to 
let them take a vote. " Give up." joined in several Senators. 
" Senators say, ' Give up,' " answered Sumner. " That is not 
my habit/' " We know that," answered Conners, amid the 



510 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

laughter of the Senate. And the resolution went over. When it 
came up next. Chandler, of Michigan, again moved to postpone 
it. A debate followed with a good deal of feeling. Sumner 
was charged with unfaithfulness to Freedom and the Free 
States, in joining hands with tlie Democratic Senator from 
Kentucky to defeat the recognition of the free State of Louis- 
iana. Sumner replied that their measure was a shadow, cal- 
culated to bring disaster and he w^arncd a Republican Senator 
to hesitate before he lent his influence for a proposition, " open- 
ing the way to an ominous future." It was urged that the vote 
of Louisiana was needed to make the necessary three-fourths of 
the States to ratify the constitutional amendment prohil)iting 
slavery. Sumner denied that it was needed, denied that the 
Rebel States should be considered as States, in a count for the 
purpose and insisted that only three-fourths of those actually 
in the Union were necessary. States in rebellion had no right, 
he argued, at such a time to control the Government and thwart 
the overthrow of slavery. The motion to substitute another bill 
for consideration was also lost. 

The debate proceeded, Henderson of Missouri, said : " The 
Senator from Kentucky thinks the Constitution of Louisiana 
is the offspring of military usurpation, but he does not say 
that the Constitution itself is anti-republican." " I do," an- 
swered Sumner. "You do?" asked Henderson. "Certainly," 
said Sumner. " I believe now candidly," said Henderson, 
" that the Rebellion is about at an end, and if there were no 
other evidence of it, that evidence would be presented to-night, 
in the close alliance and affiliation of my friend from Massa- 
chusetts and my friend from Kentucky. Truly the lion and 
the lamb have lain down together." " Who is the Hon and who 
is the lamb ? " asked Johnson, of Maryland. " That is for the 
gentlemen themselves to settle," answered Henderson, amid the 
laughter of the Senate. " The Senator from Massachusetts," 
he continued, " says that these State Constitutions are not re- 
publican in form. Will he tell me in what respect? " " If the 
loyal men, white and black recognize it, then it will be republi- 
can in form. Unless that is done, it will not be," answered 
Sumner. Henderson asked. Can Congress interfere with the 
right of suffrage in one of the States ? Sumner promptly an- 
swered, " Under the words of the Constitution of the United 
States, declaring that the United States shall guarantee to 
every State a republican form of government, it is the bonnden 
duty of the United States, by act of Congress, to guarantee com- 
plete freedom to every citizen, immunity from all oppression, 
and absolute equality "before the law." Henderson argued that 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 511 

the failure of Rebels to vote did not violate the principles of 
republicanism. " It was the failure of loyal citizens to vote 
that did the damage," answered Sumner. " I answer that," 
said Henderson, " by asking, what loyal men did General Banks 
prevent from voting?" ""AU the colored race," promptly an- 
swered Sumner. 

The debate proceeding, Sumner proposed, as another sub- 
stitute, a series of resolutions, that the Constitution requires 
that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in the 
Union a republican form of government" and that the term 
" United States " when so used meant " the President and both 
Houses of Congress acting for the whole people " and not any 
military commander or executive officer; that in the definition 
of the expression " republican form of government," we should 
adopt the Declaration of Independence and insist that, in every 
re-established State, all persons must be equal before the law, 
that there should be no discrimination, in favor of Eebels who 
had forfeited all rights, and exclusion of loyal persons who had 
never forfeited any, that the equality of all should be secured so 
that, when re-established, the governments should be permanent 
and not again be liable to be overthrown by an oligarchical 
ruling class, that, aside from questions of justice, the votes of 
the colored people were needed against enemies at home as 
much as their guns were needed against rebels in the field. 
These resolutions were on Sumner's motion ordered to be 
printed and he gave notice that at the proper time he would 
offer them as a substitute. 

As the debate proceeded Eeverdy Johnson argued that tlie 
United States had no right to impose on a State a change in tlie 
qualification of its electors, that this must be done by the State 
itself, that the State alone had tlie right to determine who 
should vote. Sumner answered that the Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation was now admitted to be binding and would be sus- 
tained by the Supreme Court of the United States and it 
recognized the right of the United States to impose conditions 
on the Rebel States against their will. At the close of John- 
son's speech, Sumner offered a proviso to the resolution, that 
reconstruction was not to take effect except on the condition 
that within the reconstructed state there be no denial of the 
electoral franchise or any other right on account of color or 
race but that all persons must be equal before the law and that 
the state should so guarantee before it could return. This pro- 
viso was opposed by Henderson, Johnson and Pomeroy. 

Finally Wade moved that the consideration of Trumbull's 
resolution be postponed to the next Session, Wilson inter- 



513 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

rupted the consideration of it by a motion to adjourn. This 
was lost. Then the motion to postpone was lost. Howard then 
moved to adjourn. This too was lost. Then a motion to lay 
the resolution on the table was lost. Sumner declared the pas- 
sage of the resolution would be " a national calamity," the polit- 
ical Bull Run of the Administration, sacrificing a great cause 
and the destinies of the Republic," and urged that they were not 
ready to vote on it, that it should be discussed farther and he 
moved to adjourn as it was now late at night. But the motion 
was lost. Trumbull appealed for a vote, saying that Sumner 
had fought it now day after day to prevent a vote when a large 
majority were against him, and had overruled him time and 
again and here he still stood at half-past ten o'clock Saturday 
night making dilatory motions, with a determination to brow- 
beat the Senate. Sumner denied that he was brow-beating the 
Senate. " I heard it said there should be no vote to-night," re- 
torted Trumbull. " Is that brow-beating ? " asked Sumner. 
" The question between the Senator from Illinois and myself is 
simply this : he wishes to pass the measure, and I do not wish 
to pass it. He thinks the measure innocent; I think it dan- 
gerous, and, thinking it dangerous, I am justified in opposing 
it, and in employing all the means in our arsenal." 

Sumner again reiterated his prediction that the resolution 
could not be passed that night, that the rules would prevent it 
and he knew it and its importance justified its defeat in that 
way, this being true, was it advisable to press such a revolu- 
tionary measure at such a time? If he did, he would make a 
mistake, that a certain character of antiquity had been found 
sowing salt by the sea-side and plowing it in and Trumbull's 
occupation was just about as profitable. Sumner again moved 
to adjourn, but it was again voted down. And the debate 
continued. Hendricks of Indiana said that Sumner was de- 
termined that none of these States should be heard in Congress 
until those who spoke for them spoke the voice of negroes as 
well as of white men. Others said this should not be and the 
Democrats were a unit on that. Finally Lane, of Kansas, 
moved to adjourn and shortly before midnight the Senate 
adjourned. 

The next Monday, the consideration of the resolution was 
taken up again. Sherman of Ohio interrupted by a motion to 
take up the appropriation bills and other pressing measures, 
reminding Senators that it was now February twenty-seventh 
and that the Session must close Marcli fourth, when these bills 
must be passed. This motion was debated. Sumner said the 
Convention that formed the Louisiana Constitution was " a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 513 

stupendous hoax " and that the resolution to recognize it was 
little different and that perhaps the expression was hardly 
strong enough to characterize a work where military power and 
injustice to a whole race had been enlisted in defiance of 
self-evident truths, that the pretended government was " utterly 
indefensible/' " a mere seven months abortion, begotten by the 
bayonet in criminal conjunction with the spirit of caste and 
born before its time, rickety, unformed, unfinished, — whose 
continued existence would be a burden, a reproach and a 
wrong." He was interrupted by vSherman and the vote was 
taken on his motion to proceed with other business. It was 
carried by a vote of thirty-four to twelve and this resolution for 
the admission of Louisiana was postponed — forever. The con- 
sideration of it was never resumed. 

An extra session of the Senate, of a week's duration, followed 
President Lincoln's second inauguration, during which there 
was some little discussion of the credentials of the Senators 
from Arkansas. But the Senate was not disposed to enter upon 
the subject of reconstruction then. Sumner took no part in the 
discussion farther than to offer a resolution in which he named 
the three conditions of reconstruction as, cessation of hostilities, 
the adoption of a constitution, republican in form, and an act of 
Congress declaring the State entitled to representation. But 
he did not press it. The credentials of the Arkansas Senators 
were referred to a committee and were not reported back. 

The contest had been a hard one for Sumner and he was 
given the credit of defeating the resolution. It was a square 
defeat of reconstruction, under the direction of the President 
alone and without the action of Congress. It was an emphatic 
assertion of an intention to extend the right of suffrage to the 
colored people of the South. Had the resolution succeeded they 
would probably never have had this right. Reconstruction 
having been inaugurated without it, it would probably have 
continued so to the end, leaving them in the condition in which 
the war found them in this respect. To Sumner therefore is 
due the credit of turning the tide in their favor at an opportune 
moment. Having placed his hand to the plow he never turned 
back, until the work was complete and the colored people en- 
joyed the right to vote. 

With the friends of the resolution there was some bitterness 
towards Sumner for defeating it. It disturbed the relations 
between him and Trumbull for some years, though they were 
finally reconciled and their former friendship was renewed. It 
was supposed it would destroy the good relations between Sum- 
ner and President Lincoln. One newspaper said that Sumner 



514 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

" had kicked the pet scheme of the President down the marble 
steps of the Senate Chamber " and that their friendship was at 
an end. Another said that the President was indignant at 
his course and liad reverted to the subject repeatedly in the 
presence of strangers. It was freely commented on, in Wash- 
ington, in this way. But the people who spoke so dicl not know 
President Lincoln. As Sumner himself put it, " President 
Lincoln was too good a man to be influenced by an honest 
opposition on political grounds." The public were soon to be 
disabused of such an idea. He was a man of the broadest views 
and of the most catholic toleration. He had too often suffered 
unjustly for opinion's sake to be willing to punish others for a 
conscientious difference with him. Petty malice found no 
place in his nature. " I shall do nothing in malice," he once 
wrote. " What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing." 

The session of Congress closed on the fourth day of March. 
On that day President Lincoln was inaugurated for the second 
time. It was Saturday. The newspapers were still discussing 
the rupture between Lincoln and Sumner growing out of the 
defeat in the Senate of the recognition of Reconstruction in 
Lousiana. On the fifth of March Sumner received from the 
President an autograph note asking him to accompany the 
Presidential party to the Inauguration Ball on the following 
evening, inclosing a ticket and saying their carriage would call 
for him at half-past nine. At the appointed time the carriage 
called and as the Presidential Party entered the hall, the Presi- 
dent was seen on the arm of Mr. Colfax, Speaker of the House, 
and following them was Mrs. Lincoln on the arm of Mr. Sum- 
ner. Then in succession came other members of the party, 
Cabinet Ministers with their wives and some of their families 
and others. The circumstance was the occasion again of a dis- 
cussion, by the newspapers, of the relations between the Presi- 
dent and Sumner. And it was now admitted, that their friend- 
ship was not of the kind to be disturbed by a conscientious 
difference on public questions, however important. 

Sumner remained in Washington, according to his custom, 
for some weeks after the close of the session to get up his cor- 
respondence and to study questions arising in the Senate. He 
was much interested now in reconstruction and other measures 
that the close of the war was bringing forward. During these 
days he called often at the White House to see the President up- 
on matters of business, and received many proofs of his friend- 
ship. 

One important matter of business concerned the arrest and 
prosecution of two Boston merchants, Benjamin and Franklin 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 515 

Smith, partners as Smith Bros. & Co. They had heen arrested 
by order of the Navy Department on a charge of fraud, in the 
performance of their contracts with the Department and con- 
fined in Fort Warren at Boston Harbor. Bail to the amount of 
half a million dollars was required, which was afterwards, how- 
ever, reduced. They were ordered to be tried at Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, by a court martial, but the place of trial also, was 
afterwards changed to Charlestown, Massachusetts. The trial 
lasted several months. It ended in a conviction of the defend- 
ants and a sentence to imprisonment for two years and to pay a 
fine of twenty thousand dollars. This judgment and sentence 
was approved by the Secretary of the Navy; and it only re- 
mained to be approved by the President. But the friends of the 
defendants asked Sumner to intercede with the President. The 
President, in reply to Sumner's inquiries, placed in his hands 
the elaborate report of the Secretary of the Navy on the case 
which he asked Sumner to read and give him an opinion on it. 
This Sumner did in writing. 

The contract of the Government with the defendants for the 
sale of supplies involved a million or twelve hundred thousand 
dollars and the specification which was claimed to be proved to 
sustain this charge of fraud was in certain tin furnished under 
the contract which, it was claimed was not of the kind des- 
ignated. For the defendants, it was insisted that the whole 
trouble grew out of a confusion of names, the tin being known 
to the trade by two names. It was conceded on both sides that 
the fraud, if a fraud, only amounted to about two hundred 
dollars. The President disapproved the sentence and discharged 
the defendants, saying that to his mind, it was beyond the 
power of rational belief that, on a contract involving so much 
the defendants would attempt a fraud that could profit them 
so little. 

Nothing can better illustrate the great President's way of 
throwing off care than the circumstances attending the dis- 
position of this business. When Sumner reached him with his 
written opinion, it was late in the evening and the President was 
just entering his carriage for a drive. He took the papers from 
Sumner, telling him to return the next day and consider it with 
him. But, urged Sumner, it is a case for immediate action. If 
you had been tried and subjected to large expense and disgrace 
and had been unjustly convicted and imprisoned and yet your 
innocence was proven, you would not wish any one to sleep 
until you were set free. The President apparently impres:ed 
with this suggestion, told Sumner to return at eleven o'cloclc 
and he would take up the case with him. Accordingly at eleven 



516 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

o'clock that night, through a torrent of rain, with streets flooded 
with water and a storm of wind threatening a downfall of chim- 
neys upon him, Sumner wended his way to the White House, 
where he found the President ready to hear him. Sumner read 
his opinion and discussed the case with the President. It was 
twenty minutes past twelve when they finished going over it 
together. The President then said he would prepare his deci- 
sion on it by morning and to come over and hear it, " when I 
open shop." " And when do you open shop ? " asked Sumner. 
*' At nine o'clock," was the answer. Promptly at the hour 
fixed, Sumner was there and was admitted. The President 
read him his indorsement on the papers and while Sumner was 
making an abstract of it, the President broke into quotations 
from Petroleum V. Nasby and added : " For the genius to 
write these things I would give up my office as President." 
Seeing that Sumner was not familiar with them, he went to a 
standing desk and opening it took out a pamphlet collection 
of the letters and proceeded to read from them to Sumner with 
evident enjoyment, apparently losing all thought of the case in 
hand and of his Presidential duties. So he continued for per- 
haps twenty minutes, when Sumner thinking there must be 
others waiting for him arose to go. He found some thirty per- 
sons, among them Senators and Representatives, waiting for 
the President, in the anteroom, as he passed out. Though in 
the company of the President much, in the intervening days 
before his death, this was the last official business Sumner trans- 
acted with him. 

He accompanied the President and Mrs. Lincoln to the thea- 
tre the last time he was there preceding the assassination and 
on her invitation he accompanied her, with some other friends, 
to meet the President at City Point, where the President was, 
on his return from Richmond, during the closing days of the 
war. Leaving the President there, they went on to Richmond 
where, accompanied by an escort of cavalry, they visited places 
of interest, among them the capitol, where Sumner got the 
gavel of the Confederate Congress. He purposed to give it to 
Secretary Stanton. The President hearing of it, said jokingly 
to Speaker Colfax that he ought to have it. " Tell Sumner from 
me to hand it over," said the President laughing. The party 
visited the tent hospitals at City Point, where Sumner saw the 
President shake hands with five thousand sick and wounded 
soldiers and when done the President told him his arm was 
not tired. They returned together to Washington on the 
Steamer River Queen. The party was a small one and they 
breakfasted, lunched and dined together, The day was fine. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 517 

the water was clear and beautiful; it was Sunday and every 
thing was peaceful and quiet as the little steamer wended her 
way homeward. Everyone was happy. The long years of the 
war were closing. The storm was over and the bright bow of 
promise was in the sky. All were looking forward joyfully to 
the future. 

. Sumner has given us some glimpses of his own, of the Presi- 
dent during the journey homeward. " He was never harsh," he 
said, " even in speaking of Jefferson Davis ; and when one (Mrs. 
Lincoln) who was privileged to address him in that way said, 
' Do not allow him to escape the law, he must be hanged,' the 
President replied calmly, in the words so beautifully adopted in 
his last Inaugural Address, ' Judge not, that ye be not judged ; ' 
and when pressed again, by the remark that the sight of Libby 
Prison, which they had both recently visited in Richmond, 
made it impossible to pardon him, the President repeated twice 
over the same words." 

And again : With a beautiful quarto Shakespeare in his 
hands, he read aloud the well-remembered words of his favorite 

* Macbeth ' : — 

" Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well, 
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
Can touch him further." 

" Impressed by their beauty, or by some presentiment unut- 
tered, he read them aloud a second time. As the friends about 
listened to his reading, they little thought how in a few days 
what was said of the murdered Duncan would be said of him. 

* Nothing can touch him further.' He was saved from the trials 
that were gathering. He had fought the good fight of Eman- 
cipation. He had borne the brunt of war. Treason had done 
its worst, but he had conquered. He had made the name of Re- 
public a triumph and a joy in foreign lands." 

Sumner recalled his speech at Springfield : " ^ A house di- 
vided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government 
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to 
fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or all the other." Sumner asked him if, at any 
time, he had any doubt about his prediction. " Not in the 
least," answered the President. " It was clearly true and time 
has justified me." 

They reached Washington about six o'clock in the evening of 



518 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

April ninth. Sumner did not see the President again until he 
was dying. A message from the White House with some 
flowers, the next day announced the surrender of Lee and 
another on Tuesday invited Sumner to view the celebration of 
the victory with the Presidential party. But he did not accept. 
Nor was he at the White House two days later on the occasion 
of another celebration, when General Grant was there. On the 
fatal night, Friday April fourteenth, Sumner was at the house 
of Senator Conness of California engaged in conversation with 
liim and Senator Stewart of Nevada, when some one, rushing 
in from the street, announced that the President had been shot 
and that an attempt had also been made to assassinate Secretary 
Seward. Sumner at once went to tlie White House and getting 
no information there went on to Ford's Theatre and then to the 
house opposite where the President liad been carried. The 
President was shot at twenty minutes past ten and Sumner 
reached him about thirty minutes later. The President never 
recovered consciousness, giving no evidence of life, but deep, 
labored breathing, until twenty-two minutes past seven, the 
next morning, when the breathing ceased and the work of the 
assassin was complete. Sumner remained at his bedside, until 
he died, a deeply affected witness of this sad scene, with which 
the war was closing. When the end came, he was standing at 
the head of the bed, supporting Robert Lincoln on his arm. 
He had borne himself well through the trying ordeal but on 
two occasions gave way to overpowering grief and sobbed aloud, 
turning his head and leaning on Sumner's shoulder. After 
all was over, Sumner quietly left the house. 

As he passed out into the gray dawn of the drizzling morning 
he met General Halleck, whose carriage had been in waiting, 
just getting into it. Sumner got in beside him to go to Mr. 
Seward's. On the way they stopped at President Johnson's, 
where General Halleck told him of President Lincoln's death 
and warned him not to go upon the street without a guard. 
At Mr. Seward's, Sumner inquired for the Secretary and his 
son, who were both victims of the same plot, Mrs. Seward 
answered his card. Her friendship had been so constant for 
Sumner during his early years in the Senate, that it affected 
him deeply to see her sick yet subjected to the additional trial 
of the probable loss of her husband and son. It was the last 
time he saw her. The blow probably hastened her end. The 
husband and son recovered but for her — the shock was too 
great ! 

By eight o'clock Sumner was at his own apartments, where 
he found guards stationed by order of the Secretary of War, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 519 

who feared that Sumner, by reason of his prominence against 
Slavery and for the prosecution of the war, might be among 
those marked for destruction. Here, weary and sad, he seated 
himself, at last, to reflect on the scenes of the night. His first 
thought filled him with new loathing for the barbarism of 
slavery. The meal prepared stood untasted before him, as he 
sat, bowed down with sadness, over the irreparable loss, but 
grim and determined as ever. The nature of the great and 
good President was so essentially humane and he had seen it 
lately proved so tender towards the conquered enemy that it 
was hard to believe that madness could be carried so far as to 
compass his death. Yet he was reminded that his death would 
do more for the cause than any human life. And what was 
any single life compared with the cause ! 

During the coming days, Sumner was several times at the 
White House to express his sympathy for the stricken family 
of the President and to aid them in such kind offices as he 
could. The widow broken-hearted seemed to turn to the cher- 
ished friend of her husband and herself, so loyal, as they all 
knew, in the dark days as well as in the happier ones. When 
she left Washington she gave Sumner two tokens of her hus- 
band, the one a picture of John Bright, the friend of Sumner 
whom he had brought so near to her husband. He was the 
friend of their country too. It was a small picture that he had 
prized. The other, liis cane, which she was sure he would 
treasure as connected with his memory. She accompanied the 
latter with a short note reminding him of his kindness to them 
and their regard for him. 

President Lincoln died on Saturday April 15. On the fol- 
lowing Monday at noon, a meeting was held, in the Senate 
Chamber, of the Senators and Representatives remaining in 
Washington, for it will be remembered neither House was in 
session. The purpose of the meeting was to take appropriate 
action upon the death of the President and make arrangements 
for the funeral. The President pro tern of the Senate was 
I Chairman and the Speaker of the House was Secretary. The 
object of the meeting was stated by Senator Foote of Vermont 
and, on motion of Sumner, a committee was appointed, of 
which he was made chairman, to report at four p. m., on the 
! proper action of the meeting. The committee reported a list 
of pall bearers and a Congressional Committee of one for each 
, State to accompany the remains to Illinois, and also reported 
I resolutions, drawn by Sumner, expressing their veneration and 
! affection for the dead President, with an estimate of his char- 
acter and asking the President by proclamation to recommend 

i 



520 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

a day for the people of the nation to assemble and commemorate 
his life. President Johnson accordingly appointed June first 
as the day. Sumner was invited by the Municipal Authorities 
of Boston to deliver the oration, in that city, on this com- 
memorative occasion and he accepted the invitation. 

The oration opened with the solemn words : " In the universe 
of God there are no accidents. From the fall of a sparrow to 
the fall of an empire or the sweep of a planet, all is according 
to Divine Providence, whose laws are everlasting. No acci- 
dent gave to his country the patriot we now honor. No acci- 
dent snatched this patriot, so suddenly and so cruelly, from his 
sublime duties. Death is as little an accident as life. Never, 
perhaps, in history has this Providence been more conspicuous 
than in that recent procession of events, where the final triumph 
is wrapped in the gloom of tragedy. It is our present duty to 
find the moral of the stupendous drama." 

It was the second time in the history of the country that the 
President had appointed a day for such observance. The first 
was on the occasion of the death of Washington. This fact 
suggested a comparison between the two Presidents, Washing- 
ton and Lincoln, which Sumner dwelt upon for some minutes. 
The one was of high birth and lofty lineage surrounded from 
childhood to the day of his death by all the accompaniments 
which wealth and position could furnish; the other, he said, 
was the child of poverty and privation inured from birth to 
manhood to the hard circumstances of frontier life, born in a 
log cabin, his grandfather had been killed by Indians and his 
father had followed the frontier westward, first from Ken- 
tucky to Indiana and later to Illinois, the son helping to split 
the rails and daub the cabins for the new homes. In this hard 
life he was reared till "at the age of twenty-one he left his 
father's house to begin the world. A small bundle, a laughing 
face, and an honest heart, — these were his simple possessions, 
together with that unconscious character and intelligence which 
his country learned to prize." Yet both Washington and Lin- 
coln fought the battles of the nation in its two greatest wars ; 
the one, for national independence and the other, for national 
unity, on the basis of liberty and equality. 

Sumner then traced Lincoln's career as he appeared in suc- 
cession, flat-boatman, captain in the Black Hawk war, surveyor, 
member of the Legislature, attorney and Congressman, always 
upward with no step backward till he reached the high places 
of earth. He dwelt at length upon the debate with Douglas 
and his later speeches against slavery, especially upon his ut- 
terances on the great truth of the Declaration of Independence, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 521 

that all men are created equal. Sumner was fresh from his 
struggles in Congress for the equal rights of the blacks and 
their recognition, in the suffrage of the States lately in rebellion, 
and he pointed with emphasis the lesson on this question as 
drawn from the speeches of Lincoln. The eulogy has been 
criticised for dwelling unduly upon this subject. It is urged 
that Lincoln did not have this question in his mind at the time 
he made the speeches. It is sufficient answer to say that the 
premises from which Lincoln reasoned could admit of no other 
conclusion and though he was at the time arguing against 
slavery he recognized the logical conclusion, at the time of his - 
death, as applied to suffrage. He had not reached the conclu- 
sion of Sumner that it was to be secured by act of Congress as 
a condition of reconstruction but probably inclined to the be- 
lief that the States themselves by local legislation were the 
proper parties to deal with the question. He had himself sug- 
gested colored suffrage, extended to certain classes, " the very 
intelligent and especially those who had fouglit gallantly in 
our ranks,'' But Sumner recognized in this, as in other ques- 
tions a certain slowness of Lincoln in reaching conclusions as 
one of his limitations, compensated, however, by his tenacity in 
adhering to his convictions when once formed. 

He dwelt upon Lincoln's entrance to the White House full of 
anxious solicitude and with a devout trust in Providence as he 
approached a duty greater than had devolved on any other since 
Washington, State after State abandoning its place, Senator 
after Senator dropping from his seat, fort after fort seized with 
their munitions of war " while the actual President, besotted 
by slavery, tranquilly witnessed the gigantic treason, as he sat 
at ease in the Executive Mansion, and did nothing." 

So he followed Lincoln as henceforward his history became 
the history of his country, through the steps of the war, paus- 
ing to dwell particularly upon his proclamation giving freedom 
to the slaves and his careful avoidance of a European war, 
meeting each situation with masterful ability to the last. The 
address increased in interest as he came to the last days when 
together they had viewed the closing scenes of the war and felt 
that peace was assured, that the struggle was over and what re- 
mained was as gathering up the hard-earned sheaves of the 
harvest. Pie dwelt upon his character, his loyalty to principle, 
regardless of consequences to himself, his caution in reaching 
conclusions, his firmness in maintaining them, his power of 
speech and thrown around all, and enlivening and pointing all, 
his humor and his unfailing common sense. He recalled how 
modest and approachable he was, always accessible to the widow 



522 LJ^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and orphan, the sick and the wounded, or the prayer of tlie 
lowly. His place in history he likened to that of William of 
Orange, or of Henry the Fourth and Saint Louis of France. 

The address upon the whole must be classed as one of Sum- 
ner's best eulogies. The style is elevated throughout, the 
diction and finish is noticeably fine, 6ven among his works where 
it is generally noticeable; and there runs through it a so- 
lemnity and a trust in Providence, as the ruler of men as well 
as of nations, that gives it a marked effect. It bears every- 
where evidence of care in its preparation. At the time of its 
delivery there was a disappointment felt. Contrary to his cus- 
tom theretofore, in his addresses at Boston, it was read and 
closely too, so that its effect, at the time, was not as marked as 
it would have been, if delivered without the use of a manuscript. 
Even his reading was not easy. He omitted his former care 
for oratorical effect and seemed content to reach his impres- 
sion upon the wider audience, by means of the newspapers. He 
preferred to devote the time at his command, for its prepara- 
tion, to making it worthy of a permanent place in literature. 
And it is from this standpoint that it should be viewed. By 
those most competent to judge, it has been placed in the front 
rank of the eulogies upon Lincoln and it deserves to be classed 
with the best of our mortuary literature. 

After this narrative of the relations of Sumner and Lincoln 
it is hardly necessary to notice a statement of Nicolay and 
Hay in their biography of Lincoln that there was a movement 
against Lincoln to force him to withdraw from the Republican 
ticket in 1864 when a candidate the second time and that this 
movement " had the earnest support and eager instigation of 
Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, of the editors of the Cin- 
cinnatti Gazette of Ohio, and what would have surprised Mr. 
Lincoln if he had known it, of Charles Sumner of Massachu- 
setts." Sumner did share with many good men, during the 
earlier years of the war, doubts of Lincoln's fitness for the place, 
owing to a certain slowness and apparent want of decision. 
The want of success of our arms at that time perhaps contrib- 
uted to this feeling. But he declined to sign any paper or take 
any part in any action against him, believing that, if any 
movement towards a different candidate was had, it should be 
through the voluntary withdrawal of Lincoln himself. He in- 
sisted that if Lincoln did not do so, that then all should rally 
around him and elect him. Any other course he believed would 
disunite the party and threaten defeat. The adoption of 
the Chicago Platform by the Democrats, declaring the war a 
failure, following the victories of Gettysburg, Vicksburg and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 523 

Atlanta, Sumner thought, acting like an overdose of ar- 
senic, would cure itself. Through it all, he was loyal to 
Lincoln. He would do nothing against him. He would act 
only with him. He spoke at a meeting called in Faneuil Hall 
to ratify the nomination, at Cooper Institute, in Kew York 
City, at various places in Massachusetts and in Connecticut, 
during the campaign, and also at a meeting called in Faneuil 
Hall for congratulation on the evening of the election, on each 
occasion with his old-time earnestness and success. 

Therefore I adopt the statement of another biographer of 
Lincoln, Isaac N". Arnold, a Member of Congress from Lin- 
coln's own State during the war and his warm personal friend, 
as expressing the true relation of Lincoln and Sumner. " Mr. 
Sumner," he says, " had become the sincere and confidential 
adviser of Lincoln. These two men, in many respects so unlike, 
became the most ardent and affectionate personal friends. They 
rode and walked together and seemed to enjoy each other's so- 
ciety like brothers, Sumner the scholar and man of convention- 
ality, the favorite American of the English aristocracy, found 
in Lincoln one that he admired and confided in above all 
others." 



CHAPTEE XXXII 

RECONSTRUCTION UNDER JOHNSON — HIS CHARACTER — SUM- 
NEr's work for equal RIGHTS — THE FOURTEENTH AMEND- 
MENT — SUMNER AND THE PRESIDENT — EULOGIES ON COL- 
LEAGUES 

Three hours after the death of President Lincoln, his suc- 
cessor was inaugurated, at his apartments in the Kirkwood 
Hotel, in the presence of the members of the Cabinet, who were 
able to attend, and of the Senators, who remained in Washing- 
ton. It was fortunate that Vice-President Johnson was in the 
city, at the time of the assassination. He had come to Wash- 
ington only five days before and it was his intention to leave 
within a few hours after the assassination occurred. His ab- 
sence would have furnished a better opportunity for a political 
disturbance. As it was, the power passed quietly and peace- 
fully from the hand of one ruler to that of another and so 
quickly that almost with the news of the assassination, the word 
of the inauguration of the new President reached the people. 
Little did they then realize the change that was thus wrought, 
in the policy of the administration ! For there has never been a 
more radical change made, in our national policy, than was 
made when the power passed from the hand of Abraham Lin- 
coln to that of Andrew Johnson. 

It was remarked, at the time the oath was administered, by 
Chief Justice Chase, to President Johnson, he made no ex- 
pression of an intention to follow the policy of his predecessor. 
Though such a statement was made, in a speech to a sorrowing 
delegation from President Lincoln's own State, a short time 
later, on a revision of the speech, by President Johnson it was 
omitted, thus showing that, while the subject was thought of, 
he was not prepared to commit himself to it. To men of a 
later day, this hesitation seems unaccountable. President Lin- 
coln had reached such an assured place, in the hearts of the 
people, that almost any policy suggested by him would have 
been received, by a great proportion of the country, without 
question. His conduct of the war had been eminently success- 
ful and satisfactory to the North and his administration had 
been recently indorsed by a renomination and a triumphant 
re-election. President Johnson's failure to express himself in 
524 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 525 

favor of a continuance of the same policy, can only be ex- 
plained, by a conviction, that it was hardly in harmony with 
his own opinions or those of his confidential advisers, at the 
time, or else that he was not prepared to commit himself to any 
policy. 

It must be confessed that he assumed the Presidency at a 
difficult time. The war was closed. The settled policy of a vig- 
orous prosecution of it, which had been pursued, was now at an 
end. The questions of reconstruction and the care of the freed- 
men were comparatively untried. Such questions had never 
before appeared, except during President Lincoln's adminis- 
tration, and then only discussed ; they were not settled. Con- 
sequently there was no precedent by which he could be guided. 
The respect and affection that had come to President Lincoln 
during the four years of his life of trial, in the White House, 
could not of course be transferred to another. Instead came the 
cold, critical regard that usually meets a new and untried man. 
It, perhaps, came to Johnson in added measure. 

His career thus far had been mainly an honorable one. He 
was born in North Carolina and belonged to the class, known 
in the South as " poor whites." He was brought up to the trade 
of a tailor. In early life he removed to eastern Tennessee. He 
learned to read in his fifteenth year. He was successively 
Mayor of his town. Member of the Legislature, five terms a 
Member of Congress, two terms Governor of his State, and a 
United States Senator — and all these before he was fifty years 
of age. He entered the Senate in .1857. Sumner was still suf- 
fering from the Brooks assault and consequently was much of 
the time, absent from his seat. He continued in the Senate, 
until March 1862, when he left at the earnest solicitation of 
President Lincoln to accept the difficult post of Military Gov- 
ernor of Tennessee. When that State had adopted the ordi- 
nance of Secession he refused to be bound by it or to enter the 
Eebellion. While every other Senator followed the fortunes 
of his state, he alone of the twenty-two from the eleven Con- 
federate States, remained firm. He filled the office of Military 
Governor under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, and often 
peril, with such ability as to attract the attention of the North 
and lead to his nomination to the Vice-Presidency. He had 
gained the implicit confidence of President Lincoln, who, at his 
suggestion, omitted the State of Tennessee, from the operation 
of the Proclamation of Emancipation. After he had filled the 
office of President, with all the warring incidents of the Im- 
peachment proceedings, and had retired to private life, he was 
returned, by his State, to the United States Senate and died in 



526 J^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

that office. This career, of almost uninterrupted success, shows 
liim at least to have had some strong points. 

But it brings out one trait of character, in strong relief. No 
man would have been the only one of twenty-two Senators, to 
stand out, in an indejiendent career of his own, under such cir- 
cumstances, as surrounded him from 1857 to 1862, and at the 
expiration of that time to have assumed and maintained the 
perilous post of Military Governor of a State, over which the 
liot surges of such a Rebellion were rolling back and forth, 
without having some tenacity of his own opinions, when once 
soberly formed. Whatever other faults he may have had, no 
one has accused him of vacillation. But it has been curiously 
enough observed that in the brief inaugural that he pronounced, 
when assuming the office of President, occupying in its delivery 
hardly five minutes, " I '' and "my" and "me" occurred at 
least twenty times. 

One of the peculiarities of his career is, that though born and 
continuing to live in a slave State, he was never in sympathy 
with slavery. He realized that slaves were held by a very few 
owners, powerful and tyrannical in disposition, but, if resisted, 
without the power to sustain their pretensions. His own sec- 
tion of Tennessee was in the rough and mountainous, but fertile 
eastern portion of the State, devoted to small farming, but ill 
fitted to slave labor. Johnson's quick eye caught the situation 
and his influence was generally thrown to measures to benefit 
the plain people, the small farmers or the poorer classes, rather 
tlian with the owners of the great plantations. He powerfully 
advocated, and is credited with being the author, of the home- 
stead policy of the Government ; — one hundred and sixty acres 
of land to the actual settler — in the distribution of the unim- 
proved land of the West, a policy necessarily fatal to slavery, 
which could only thrive on large plantations. Though a South- 
ern Senator, he denounced Secession, with vigorous boldness. 
While a Member of the House, in 1847, he arose, as John 
Quincy Adams, then near the close of life, entered ; and pub- 
licly tendered him the choice of his seat, that venerable com- 
moner having been detained, by sickness, from appearing, at 
the opening of the session, to make a choice of one for him- 
self. 

While in the Senate, his membership being comparatively 
new, he was not much given to speech making and his part in 
the work was not a conspicuous one. When he came to the Pres- 
idency, Sumner's acquaintance with him was only slight. At 
the death of President Lincoln, he was stopping at the Kirk- 
wood Hotel, in Washington, but he then removed his lodging 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 527 

to rooms, in the house of Samuel Hooper, a Member of Congress 
from Boston, and opened a temporary office, for business, in the 
Treasury Building. He continued to occupy these quarters 
during the time President Lincoln's family remained in the 
White House. Appreciating the importance of his influence 
upon the questions of reconstruction, Sumner lost no time, in 
seeing him and mentioning the subject. They met almost daily 
and the subject was repeatedly talked over. Sumner was fearful 
of the future, in the new President's hands, and he a Souther- 
ner, realizing that, though the hard, costly war was over, the 
fruits of it still remained to be gathered. Sumner did not wish 
to see rebels restored to place and power without some guarantee 
for the future. He feared that the President, who had been 
kept from Washington, during the previous three years, by his 
duties as Military Governor of Tennessee, was too little familiar 
with the work in Congress, upon reconstruction. Indeed subse- 
quent events showed that President Johnson, at this time, had 
no fixed convictions of his own, upon this question. 

During the first few weeks in the office, in the numerous off- 
hand speeches that he made, he talked much of treason and the 
punishment of those who had been in rebellion, — so much, that 
it became monotonous to thoughtful men, who knew that the 
class was too large to think of such a course. But he said noth- 
ing of reconstruction. Chief Justice Chase suggested to Sumner 
that they try to give him another topic. Together they called on 
him and urged him to say something for the equal rights of the 
colored men. He seemed somewhat reserved, but not more so 
than his position would suggest. The Chief Justice afterwards 
remarked how his countenance lighted up, when Sumner ap- 
pealed to him to carry out the Declaration of Independence. 
They both left him satisfied of his good intentions. A few days 
later, in a conversation with Sumner alone, he assured him 
there was no difference between them on the suffrage question. 
Sumner expressed his gratification at this declaration of the 
President and added the hope that there should be no division 
of the great Union party, that there should not be some called 
" the President's friends," and others, " the opposition," but 
that all should be kept together. The President promptly 
replied, " I mean to keep you all together." In describing his 
feelings afterwards, Sumner said, as he walked away from that 
interview with the President, he felt that the battle of his life 
was ended. If the President declared himself for the equal 
rights of all, he thought the cause would be carried by his in- 
fluence. 

But at another time when the case of Tennessee was dis- 



528 I^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

cussed, Sumner urged the President to use his influence for the 
establishment of equal sulfrage, in the State, so that it could be 
used as an example, to which the other returning States could 
be made to conform. But to this, the President made answer, 
that if he were at Nashville he would see this accomplished. 
This hesitation disturbed Sumner. It appeared to him like a 
disposition to evade the question. Sumner answered him that 
though at Washington, the President had the long end of the 
lever, with which, by his power and merely expressing his desire, 
he could control measures even at Nashville. Sumner recurred 
to the subject again, with the President, when about to leave 
Washington, for the summer. It was about the middle of May. 
He apologized for returning to the subject so often. But the 
President interrupted him pleasantly with the question, " Have 
I not always listened to you ? " Sumner promptly replied that 
he had. He then proceeded, at some length, to point out to the 
President the manner in which his temporary power, as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army, over a -district under military 
control, could be exercised, viz., by controlling the newspapers 
by choosing, as Military Governors, men of known devotion to 
equal rights so as to educate the people for it, by encouraging 
the people of the South to engage in useful labor and abstain 
from politics, and thus, keeping the district under good in- 
fluences, to hand over the subject of reconstruction and equal 
rights to Congress, wljere it properly belonged. The President 
listened to it all attentively and received it, in perfect kindness. 
Sumner went home feeling there would be no trouble, so far as 
President Johnson was concerned. He assured friends, that 
he met and with whom he conversed, on the subject, in Boston, 
that the President was in harmony with his views and that the 
cause of equal rights was safe, in his hands. 

But by the first of June, less than two weeks after Sumner 
left Washington, all these hopes were dashed, by two public 
proclamations of the President. They were issued on the 
twenty-ninth day of May. The first was a proclamation of 
amnesty and pardon to all Rebels, excepting however certain 
classes, who by reason of their rank or the aggravated character 
of their acts were deemed most guilty, but even these were en- 
couraged to apply to the President, for a specific pardon. In 
less than nine months, from the date of the proclamation, nearly 
fourteen thousand of the most prominent men in the South, 
applied for and received these individual pardons, from the 
President. By this means a constituency of qualified voters 
was created in the South. The second proclamation was to ap- 
point William W. Holden provisional Governor of North Caro- 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 529 

lina, who was to assemble a convention to amend the constitu- 
tion and exercise the powers necessary to enable the loyal people 
to restore the State to its constitutional relation to the Federal 
Government. This proclamation confined the right to vote to 
those white men who were qualified under the laws of North 
Carolina, at the commencement of the war, thus at one blow 
ending the question of equal suffrage to the blacks and placing 
the whole matter in the hands of the men who had lately been 
in rebellion. Both of these proclamations assumed the power 
of the President to dispose of the whole subject of reconstruc- 
tion and ignored the authority of Congress over it. The Sec- 
retary of the Treasury was directed to nominate collectors of 
customs, the Postmaster-General to establish post-offices, the 
United States Judges to hold courts, and the Attorney-General 
to enforce the administration of justice, in all matters within 
the jurisdiction of the Federal courts. On June thirteenth, a 
similar proclamation was issued to reconstruct the government 
of Mississippi, with William L. Sharkey as Governor; on June 
seventeenth one for Georgia, with James Johnson for Gov- 
ernor; on June twenty-first, one for Alabama, with Lewis E. 
Parsons for Governor; on June thirtieth, one for South Caro- 
lina, with Benjamin F. Perry for Governor; on July thirteenth, 
one for Florida with William Marvin for Governor. These were 
all on the same plan as North Carolina. 

It is interesting to note, who some of the Governors were, in 
order to see whether the President had followed Sumner's ad- 
vice, to appoint men known for devotion to equal rights, so that 
their names alone would be a proclamation, — men like Carl 
Schurz whom Sumner suggested for one. Holden, appointed 
Governor of North Carolina, was a member of the convention 
which adopted the ordinance of secession and he signed that 
article. Perry, the Governor of South Carolina, held a judicial 
position under the Eebel Government and was one of "its Com- 
missioners of Impressments. Parsons, Governor of Alabama, 
Vi'as a member of the Confederate Legislature of that State and 
introduced in it resolutions, thanking Jefferson Davis " for 
his good labors in the cause of our common country, together 
with the assurance of continued support." 

The President recognized the Pierpont government of Vir- 
ginia, sitting at Alexandria, whose Senators had already been 
refused seats in the United States Senate, and whose records 
and archives, Thaddeus Stevens afterwards said, were taken, at 
the close of the war, to Richmond, in an ambulance. President 
Lincoln's " ten per cent, governments " in Louisiana, Arkansas 
and Tennessee were all of them recognized as legal, though as 



530 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

we have seen, the Senators of Louisiana and Arkansas had been 
rejected by the Senate, and those from Tennessee had not yet 
applied for their seats, but would certainly meet the same fate, 
when they did. 

Thus, within three months after Johnson assumed the duties 
of the Presidency, his whole scheme of reconstruction had been 
worked out and put in operation. He, in this, showed the merit 
of dispatch, at least, — if dispatch be a merit, in the disposition 
of such weighty concerns. The President had accomplished, in 
three months, what Congress had already wrestled with, for 
much of two years, and was destined to struggle with for several 
years to come. 

But it was apparent, that, if the work of the President stood, 
the freedmen had no chance of improvement. Their old 
masters before the war, were thus restored to power. The same 
men, who held the ballot then held it now. Their disposition 
towards the colored men had not changed. They could not be 
expected to place the ballot in the hands of men who had lately 
been their slaves and been given freedom as the result of a gi- 
gantic war, in which they had been conquered. They could only 
be expected to perpetuate themselves in power, and this could 
certainly be best accomplished by keeping the colored men out. 
The danger was that they would go farther and by hostile leg- 
islation reduce them to a condition of peonage and thus the 
hope of men, like Sumner, be blasted, that the colored men if 
given the ballot, would be able to take care of themselves and 
strengthen the Union. 

The immediate results showed that these fears were well- 
founded. Instead of drafting new constitutions adapted to the 
changed conditions in the South the constitutional conventions 
in the reconstructed States took their old ones, made a few 
changes and readopted them, with all their odious class distinc- 
tions. One thing they uniformly did, was to abolish slavery. 
But for this, they could hardly claim credit, for it was now 
apparent it would soon be abolished by the amendment to the 
Federal Constitution, which had been proposed by Congress 
and was being promptly ratified by the States. President John- 
son, indeed, advised them to admit, to the right of suffrage the 
colored men who could read and write and such as owned and 
paid taxes on property valued at two hundred and fifty dollars, 
but in the same letter, that he advised this, he gave as his reason 
that it was to placate " the Radicals who were wild upon negro 
franchise " and would foil their attempt to exclude Senators and 
Eepresentatives, elected in the reconstructed States, from Con- 
gress. He showed both his private feeling on the question 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 531 

and the unworthiness of his motive in suggesting what he 
did. But he virtually said to the South; this question is 
all in your hands, to do with it as you may deem best; the 
nation cannot control you in your solution of it. And having 
given them this cue he could hardly have a doubt what they 
would do. They promptly accepted the hint and did what they 
felt the President in reality wished, left them all without the 
franchise. 

The results were soon seen. The offices were quickly filled, 
with men who had lately been prominent in the Rebellion. 
Raphael Semmes, the commander of the Rebel vessel, the 
Alabama, was chosen a Probate Judge in the State whose name 
that ship had carried so long and so widely and with such 
disastrous results to the North. Herschel V. Johnson, a Con- 
federate Senator, and Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President 
of the Confederacy, were sent to the United States Senate from 
Georgia. In New Orleans the man who was Mayor, when the 
city was captured from the Confederacy, was returned to that 
office under reconstruction. The war had impoverished many 
of these men, others were crippled and maimed and the South, 
while appreciating the cause, in which they sufi'ered, had no 
other means to reward them than this. The failure of their 
undertaking left a pension out of the question. So long as their 
section remained in the control of its ancient masters they had 
all these offices at their disposal. If the colored people, largely 
in the majority in many of the election districts, were given 
the suffrage and they chose to exercise their right, this power 
to dispose of them would be taken away. 

These results, rapidly brought about, by President Johnson, 
were viewed with consternation by the advocates of equal suf- 
frage, in the Senate and House, now at their homes, during the 
recess of Congress. Their effect upon Sumner can easily be 
imagined. He had left Washington feeling that the President 
was sound upon the subject of reconstruction and that the 
rights of the freedmen were safe in his hands. He had so 
assured his friends upon his return to Boston. He was now con- 
vinced otherwise. The revelation came with stunning effect. 
Many Republicans had not yet reached the conclusion tliat 
equal suffrage should be accorded the freedmen. To them, the 
President's position did not seem of so much importance. They 
hardly differed from him. Public opinion upon the question 
was still so unsettled that the President was hopeful of carrying 
the body of the Republicans with him. When he issued his 
proclamation, he did not expect to break with his party. He 
evidently thought then, he could carry with him all of it. 



532 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

except a few of radical views like Sumner, Wade and Thaddeus 
Stevens. But the sentiment was growing. Sumner was leading 
it. He was determined. To him more than to any other the 
colored people owe the right of suffrage which they now enjoy. 

The inquiry naturally suggests itself, how did the President 
come to make this sudden and radical departure from the views 
he had early expressed to Sumner and repeated to others. The 
answers are various. No one of them can certainly be said to 
be altogether correct. One, that obtained a good deal of credit, 
is that when Johnson took the oath of office, as Vice-President, 
he appeared publicly intoxicated and, continuing so after- 
wards, he was taken charge of by Preston King, a Senator from 
New York, and the Blairs, father and son, of Maryland. He 
was taken to the home of the latter, at Silver Springs, a few 
miles from the city of Washington, and cared for until his 
recovery. Hence arose a friendship, which counted for much, 
upon his accession to the Presidency, a few weeks later. They 
were opposed to equal suffrage. The President may have felt 
some bitterness towards other Republicans, who had witnessed 
and commented severely on his lapse. Sumner, who was always 
swift to condemn such an exhibition, by a public man, said 
privately, at the time, that he ought to be waited on, by a com- 
mittee, and asked to resign. Such remarks may have been 
repeated to the President by persons interested in controlling 
him. 

Another explanation, and I think a better one, is this. When 
Johnson came to the Presidency he had no well-fixed opinions 
of his own, upon reconstruction. His mind had been occupied 
with the war and the treatment of the rebels. The death of 
President Lincoln coming witli startling suddenness and elevat- 
ing him to the dizzy heights of the Presidency, without time for 
meditation, he talked a good deal at random during his first 
weeks in the office. Indeed his speeches were not generally 
creditable to him, during the Presidency. About the time 
Sumner left Washington, Secretary Seward was recovering 
sufficiently from his injuries, to give attention to public busi- 
ness. The President had his first official business with him on 
May tenth. Nine days later, they met at the State Department. 
From this time forward, they were together often. Seward 
admitted he advised the President to pursue this policy. He 
was afterwards an open supporter of it. No one who knew the 
Secretary intimately, doubted his power of persuasion, in 
private conversation. It was said by those best able to judge, 
tliat notwithstanding his great ability at the bar and on the 
stump, this was his greatest gift. He doubtless had, in his 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 533 

own mind, to signalize his return to health, by persuading the 
President to issue a proclamation of amnesty and pardon to 
those who had been in rebellion. It would appear a graceful 
act for one who had been so near death's door, at the hand of 
an assassin. He doubtless pictured to the President the pecul- 
iar propriety of his doing it. He had been born and reared in 
the South, it had always been his home. He had taken a manly 
part in opposing secession, had pointed out its fearful con- 
sequences; now too sadly realized. He had bravely maintained 
the Union against a mad career that he could not control, and 
had prevailed. It would be a graceful act for him, now at the 
height of power, to forgive his erring brothers. Did not the 
President also see that it would secure him the favor of the old 
slave-holding class, who had always held aloof from him, as the 
offspring of the poor white class, and not the equal of their set? 
He had struggled to power against them, but their praises now 
would be sweet; and it would be sweeter still, when his official 
life was ended, to return to their midst and enjoy a homage 
to which distance thus far had always lent enchantment. In 
the hands of a skilful diplomat as Seward undoubtedly was, 
the situation furnished many suggestions that could be forcibly 
plied. Doubtless more than any other, the Secretary is to be 
held responsible for the change wrought in the opinions of the 
President. Sumner himself attributed the change to Preston 
King, the Blairs and the Secretary. 

The serious question with Sumner was how to remedy the 
evil that was being done, Congress not being in session and 
several months remaining before it would reconvene. It was 
suggested that he go on to Washington to interview the Presi- 
dent ; but he felt it was too late. The mischief was done before 
he knew of it. The proclamations furnished him the first in- 
formation. But he went promptly to work in other ways. In 
his eulogy on Lincoln, delivered only two days after the date of 
the first proclamations, at the risk of criticism, he boldly 
referred to and briefly advocated equal rights and suffrage for 
colored men. Copious extracts from the eulogy were published, 
in tlie newspapers, and were widely read, thus calling attention 
to the subject and giving early direction to public sentiment in 
Massachusetts. He wrote -several letters during the summer, 
which were published, in which he expressed himself for equal 
rights, including suffrage for the colored people. One of these 
was to the Mayor of Boston, in response to an invitation to 
deliver the city oration on the fourth day of July; another, to a 
committee of colored men of Savannah, Georgia, who had for- 
warded him a petition for the right to vote " signed personally 



534: LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

by their own hands," as they pathetically described it. In his 
reply Sumner urged them to never neglect their work, but 
meanwhile prepare themselves for citizenship and to be assured 
their rights would be protected. He wrote more at length and 
more emphatically on the subject to the New York Independent. 
In this letter he said, " President Johnson spoke well, when in 
Tennessee he said that, ' in the work of reorganization Rebels 
must take back seats, leaving place to those who have been 
loyal.' There is a keynote of a just policy, which I trust Con- 
gress will adopt. It is difficult to measure the mischief already 
accumulated from the policy that has been pursued." 

On the fourteenth of September, Sumner was unanimously 
elected Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Convention, 
held at Worcester, and made the opening speech, of an hour's 
length. It was a carefully preparecl argument for equal rights. 
He said he had expected when he made his last speech, in the 
preceding campaign for Lincoln and Johnson, that it would be 
his last anti-slavery speech, but now he was sad to learn it was 
not, that slavery had been abolished only in name and that the 
work of liberation would not be complete until equal rights 
were secured, that a righteous government could not be founded 
on any exclusion of race, that he did not know how others 
might feel, but, as for him, his course was fixed, that he pro- 
posed to battle on to the end and until all distinction of caste 
were abolished, if it took what remained to him of life. The 
convention unanimously passed a resolution calling upon Con- 
gress to see that the most perfect guarantees, for the safety of 
all loyal people, both white and black, were secured, before the 
people of the South were restored to their forfeited rights. 
Sumner's friend, Richard Cobden, who had been such a tower 
of strength in preventing hostile measures being taken against 
us, by England, during the war, had died, on the second of the 
preceding April. His last letter to Sumner was written just a 
month before his death. In reviewing the course of Eurojie 
towards us, he wrote to Sumner. " It is nothing but your great 
power that has kept the hands of Europe off you." The Con- 
vention passed a resolution commemorative of him, as one of 
our country's most earnest and devoted friends, and directed 
Sumner to communicate it to his family. This he did in a 
letter, conveying also an expression of his personal loss. 

During this vacation Sumner also prepared an article en- 
titled. Clemency and Common Sense, a curiosity of literature, 
with a moral. It was published, in the Atlantic Monthly for 
December, 1865. Its purpose was to reach a different class and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 535 

advocate, in another form, the necessity of requiring from the 
Sonth guarantees commensurate with the danger and not permit 
a return of its States, to their former place, without first hav- 
ing equal rights secured to the freedmen. It was an effort in 
still another way to counteract the work of the President. 

It will be observed that, in all his work thus far to prevent 
the success of the President's plan, for the restoration of the 
Southern States, with their old class distinctions and without 
protection for the freedmen, Sumner had avoided antagonizing 
him openly. Knowing the disposition of Congress to agree with 
the President, he was careful to avoid the appearance of a 
rupture. He still had some hope of an agreement, when Con- 
gress convened. Till then he was determined, while protecting 
his cause, to cast no obstructions in the way of harmonious 
action between the two departments of the Government. 

Sumner also addressed letters to members of the Cabinet, 
asking them to stand firm against the Presidential policy. But 
they were still hoping to avoid a break with him and were un- 
willing to commit themselves openly against it. In fact, they 
were about evenly divided. Seward, Secretary of State ; Welles, 
Secretary of the Navy; M'Cullouch, Secretary of the Treasury 
were with the President, Dennison, Postmaster-General, was 
uncommitted; while Speed, Attorney-General; Harlan, Secre- 
tary of the Interior and Stanton, Secretary of War were against 
his new policy. But a crisis was approaching among them. 
Speed, Dennison and Harlan were soon to retire, unable to 
agree with the President and unwilling to compromise them- 
selves by remaining. Stanton, under the advice of his friends 
and following the bent of his own fearless and aggressive nature, 
was disposed to remain and fight it out. As soon as the election 
was over Sumner appealed directly to the President, by a long 
telegraphic message, as a faithful friend and supporter of his 
administration, urging him to suspend his policy towards the 
Confederate States, because it was abandoning the freedmen to 
the control of their former masters and was exposing the 
national debt to the danger of repudiation. 

Sumner went on to Washington, for the opening of Congress, 
early, so as to have a talk with the President. He reached there 
on Saturday, December second, 1865, and at once called on him 
and spent three hours in his company, in conference about the 
Southern States. The contrast between his attitude then and 
as it appeared when Sumner had left him for the summer, a few 
days after Johnson's accession to the Presidency, was pain- 
ful to Sumner. Instead of the kindly sympathetic disposition 
he then saw, he found the President now " harsh, petulant and 



536 tjIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

unreasonable." " His heart was witli the ex-rebels. For the 
Unionist, white or black, who liad borne the burden of the war, 
he had little feeling." Sumner said that the States lately in 
rebellion were unfit for restoration in their apparently lawless 
condition, without some guarantees for the right of the defence- 
less freedmen. The President retorted : " Are there no mur- 
ders in Massachusetts? " " Do not men, in Boston, sometimes 
knock each other down, so that the police is obliged to inter- 
fere ? " " Would you consent that Massachusetts, on this ac- 
count should be excluded from Congress ? " Without remarking 
on the irrelevancy of these inquiries, Sumner left, with the pain- 
ful conviction that he was " set as flint against the good cause." 
The separation was final. Each was thereafter to pursue his 
own course, but their paths were to be widely divergent. 

Congress opened, on the fourth day of December. The 
session was occupied with measures of Reconstruction, especially 
suffrage for the colored race, and with difi'erences with the 
President, which were to culminate, at the next session with 
his impeachment. On the first day of the session Sumner in- 
troduced ten separate measures, all of them bearing upon these 
questions — a bill to secure equal suffrage to colored men in the 
District of Columbia, — a bill to secure colored representation on 
juries, in the Federal courts, in cases where colored persons were 
to be indicted or tried, — one to require an oath of all voters or 
persons elected to office, in the States lately in rebellion, to 
maintain the debt contracted by the Government in the war for 
the Union to uphold the Union and to resist all laws making a 
distinction of race or color or that prevented all men from en- 
joying equal protection or rights, — another to make all persons 
in the Confederate States equal before the law whether in the 
Court Room or at the ballot box, — another to supply appropriate 
legislation, to enforce the amendment to the Constitution pro- 
hibiting slavery, — a joint resolution proposing an amendment to 
the Constitution apportioning representatives in Congress 
among the States according to the number of male citizens 
twenty-one years of age, — a bill for Reconstruction on the basis 
of equal rights, — a resolution declaring the adoption of tlie con- 
stitutional amendment proliibiting slavery, — a resolution de- 
claring five conditions of Reconstruction, loyalty, the enfran- 
chisement of all citizens, without distinction of race or color, re- 
jection of the Rebel debt and the adoption of the National debt, 
an educational system for the equal benefit of all races — the 
ch.oice of loyal citizens for office State and National, — a resolu- 
tion declaring the duty of Congress to protect loyal people of 
the South of all races, in their efforts for Reconstruction. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 537 



These bills were read, passed to a second reading and ordered 
printed. The resolutions were read and ordered printed and 
entered at length on the journal of the Senate. Sumner's pur- 
pose was to present them early and thus make them guides to 
future legislation. The standing committees of the Senate 
were formed by the dominant party acting on the report of its 
nominating committee. Sumner was a member of this nominat- 
ing committee. When the formation of the Committee on the 
District of Columbia was under consideration, Sumner said his 
only wish was that it be so constituted that it would report in 
favor of suffrage for colored men in the District. Then, an- 
swered Sherman, you must go on the Committee. Sumner 
answered he was very much occupied with the duties of the 
Committee on Foreign Eelations, but if placed on this one he 
would not decline. He was accordingly made a member of the 
Committee on the District and continued on it till relieved of 
all committee work at his own request, in 1873. A bill for 
equal suffrage was promptly reported by this committee. It 
did not become a law at this session, but at the next it was 
passed and was vetoed by the President and then repassed by a 
two-thirds vote of both Houses and thus became a law. 

Sumner's bill for Reconstruction, on the basis of equal rights 
deserves more than a passing notice. Nothing as complete and 
systematic was ever adopted. The legislation upon this sub- 
ject was piecemeal and much of it bungling. Sumner's bill 
provided for the appointment of a Provisional Governor for 
each Confederate State, to be appointed by the President, with 
the advice and consent of the Senate. Under the direction of 
this Governor, the United States Marshal was to name dep- 
uties to enroll all male citizens of the United States, resident 
of the State, in their counties and request each one to take an 
oath to maintain a republican form of government, for the State 
of which he was a resident, to recognize the permanency of the 
^NTational Government, to resist any attempt to repudiate any 
of the debts contracted in suppressing the Rebellion and to re- 
sist all laws making any distinction of race or color. 

The deputy was to make one roll of those who took the oath 

and another of those who refused to take it. If a majority of 

I the persons enrolled in the State took the oath, the Governor 

I was to invite the loyal people of the State to elect delegates to 

convention to re-establish the State Government in conformity 



with the Constitution of the United States. The number of 
members of the convention was to be the same as that of both 
Houses of the Legislature of the State before secession, and 
were to be elected by the loyal male voters, twenty-one years 



538 L,IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

of age, resident of the county. The delegates were to have tlie 
same qualifications and to he chosen at elections held by com- 
missioners appointed by the Governor. Every person voting 
was to take the foregoing oath, but any person known to have 
held office civil or military under the Confederate or Secession 
State Government or who had borne arms against the United 
States was to be excluded from voting, unless it was shown by 
the testimony of a qualified voter that he had done so involun- 
tarily. The Governor was to canvass the vote, declare the per- 
sons elected, by proclamation convene the delegates, administer 
the above oath to them and preside over their deliberations. 

If the convention declared its submission to the United 
States Government and incorporated in its State Constitution 
provisions, forbidding persons who held any office civil, except 
ministerial, or military above the rank of colonel, to vote for 
or be a member of the Legislature or Governor, prohibiting 
slavery, repudiating the Rebel debt, requiring of all office 
holders an oath to support tlie Federal Constitution and to 
maintain a republican form of government, abolishing all dis- 
tinctions founded on race or color or former condition and mak- 
ing these provisions perpetual, then the constitution thus 
formed was to be submitted to the voters. The Provisional 
Governor was to canvass tlie rotes and, if a majority were in its 
favor, to so certify to the President, wlio after obtaining the 
consent of Congress was to proclaim the State Government 
established and permit Senators, Ecpresentatives and Presi- 
dential Electors to be chosen. 

If the Convention refused to establish such a government, it 
was to be the duty of the Provisional Governor to collect taxes 
and execute the laws of the State, as they were before the pas- 
sage of the ordinance of secession, except as in conflict with the 
existing laws and constitution of the United States, the laws 
made for white persons to apply to all races and all jurors to 
have the qualification of voters under this bill. If there was 
any surplus of taxes collected under the Provisional Governor, 
after payment of the expenses of his administration, they were 
to be deposited in the United States Treasury, to be repaid to 
the State when a republican form of government should be 
there established and be recognized by the United States. On 
the twenty-first day of December, on motion of Sumner, this 
bill was referred to the Joint Committee of the Senate and 
House on Reconstruction. 

In this scheme for reconstruction two things are clearly 
noticeable, a determination to keep the whole matter in the 
hands of Congress, so that the new President would everywhere 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 539 

find a check upon his acts; and a determination to provide for 
the equal rights of the colored race. Sumner's resolution was 
fixed on both questions. He would neither trust this important 
subject with the President, of whose perversity he was now per- 
suaded ; nor would he leave the freedmen without tlie ballot, 
to protect tliem against the aggressions of their ancient masters. 
The President was to appoint the Provisional Governors, but 
it was to be with the advice and consent of the Senate. The 
President was to recognize the new government, but not until he 
obtained the consent of Congress. The surplus taxes were to 
be paid back to the States, but not until Congress united in an 
appropriation therefor. He was just as exacting about the 
equal rights of colored men. The voters were to be sworn to 
resist all laws making any distinction on account of color and 
to maintain a government where all men should be equal. 
Colored men were to be allowed to participate, in creating these 
governments. This equality was to be incorporated in a con- 
stitution that was to make it perpetual. The officers to be 
elected under it were to be sworn to maintain it. 

Sumner distrusted the former leaders of the South as much 
as he did the President. He had come to regard both as be- 
longing to one class, united in purpose and determined to act 
together. When, therefore. Senator Cowan on December 
twelfth, 1865, submitted a resolution asking the President to 
furnish information of the condition of the Southern States, 
lately in Pebellion, Sumner moved an amendment that the 
President also furnish copies of such reports as he may have 
received from officers or agents appointed to visit these States. 
The President in response to the call sent to the Senate a 
message, in which he said that sectional animosity was surely 
and rapidly merging itself into a spirit of nationality and that 
tlie conditions there were more promising than could well have 
been expected in view of all the circumstances. Accompany- 
ing the message were reports of Lieutenaut-General Grant and 
JMajor-Geiioral Carl Schurz. Sumner knew that Schurz had 
been appointed by the President to visit this section and make a 
detailed report to him of the result of his investigations, that 
in pursuance of this appointment he had visited South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and the Department of the 
I Gulf, spending about four months in a careful investigation and 
j report upon the conditions he found there. Sumner also had 
I reason to believe this report was unsatisfactory to the Presi- 
I dent. For it argued an entire absence of national feeling on 
1 the part of the South, a submission only to necessity, a promise 
Ij, of a new form of servitude to take the j^lace of slavery now 



540 Lit'E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

abolished under ordinances passed under pressure of circum- 
stances, and a warning that practical attempts by the Southern 
people to deprive the negroes of their rights might result in 
bloody collisions. This report corresponded with the infor- 
mation Sumner had from private sources and he believed it 
represented the actual condition of the South. 

The report of General Grant was radically different, both in 
its origin and its substance. There was reason to believe that 
the President, learning in advance from letters and conversa- 
tions the convictions of General Schurz, was not wishing that 
kind of information and, seeing an opportunity to turn the 
great popularity of General Grant to the support of his policy, 
he requested him, as he was starting South, on a tour of military 
inspection, to learn the feeling and intention of the Southern 
States towards the National Government. The General never 
thinking that his report would be made a subject of Congres- 
sional controversy, complied with the President's request, in a 
merely perfunctory manner. He passed through Virginia, with- 
out conversing with any citizens, spent one day in North Caro- 
lina, one in South Carolina and two in Georgia and upon his 
return to Washington made a brief report, upon this observation 
to the President. He probably spoke from a purely military 
standpoint, when he said the mass of thinking men, in the 
South accepted the situation, in good faith, and that there was 
universal acquiescence in the authority of the General Govern- 
ment, with anxiety to return to self-government, within the 
Union, and do what was required of them by the North as con- 
ditions of restoration. It said nothing of the condition of the 
freedmen or whether their rights were respected or denied. 

When the message of the President and these two accompany- 
ing reports were received by the Senate, on December nine- 
teenth, the message of the President was read and the report of 
General Grant. That of General Schurz was not read. Sum- 
ner called for the reading of it. Several senators objected, on 
account of its length, Sumner insisted that it was a very import- 
ant document, that when the report on the condition of Kansas 
was made before the war, it was all read, that now the question 
was immeasurably more important. " We have a message from 
the President," he said, " wdiich is like the whitewashing mes- 
sage of Franklin Pierce, with regard to the enormities in Kan- 
sas. Such is its parallel. I think the Senate had better at 
least listen to the opening of Major-General Schurz's report." 
The President's attitude was not so well understood then as 
later and several senators objected to Sumner's use of the word 
" -whitewashing " as applied to his message. They thought 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 541 

Sumner ought to qualify or modify or retract it. Sumner re- 
plied with some feeling that he had " nothing to retract, noth- 
ing to modify, nothing to qualify " that, while he was not ques- 
tioning the character or policy of the President as some of his 
fellow Senators seemed to think, he was characterizing the mes- 
sage as he thought it deserved. Mr. Fessenden remarked that 
" tlie difference between the Senators was a mere matter of defi- 
nitions and ought to be referred to some maker of dictiona- 
ries." Mr. Sherman moved that the reading be dispensed with 
as he preferred to read it for himself and this motion prevailed 
and the message and reports were ordered to be printed. 

The incident found its way into the papers and became a 
text for comments according to the opinions of the editors. It 
was the occasion of letters of commendation from Sumner's 
friends. Wendell Phillips wrote ; " Glorious ! just the truth, 
and lust the time and place to speak it, was your graphic and 
most effective description of the President's message. I say 
this, not that you need confirmation, but because, hearing the 
clamor against you, it seems right you should have the ' cheers ' 
as well as the ' hisses.' " 

The day after the "whitewashing" incident, December 
twentieth, 1865, Sumner took the floor on a bill introduced by 
Senator Wilson "to maintain freedom in the States in Rebel- 
lion," and spoke for more than a hour, to show the incorrectness 
of the conclusion advanced in the message of the President and 
the accompanying report of General Grant. He occupied the 
time largely in reading letters from private individuals who 
were or had been in the South. The letters covered the South- 
ern situation generally and the condition of the several Confed- 
erate States. They argued that the Southern people while ad- 
mitting themselves vanquished by arms hoped to secure suprem- 
acy in the ISTational Government, by political management, so 
as to control its affairs as they had done before the war, that 
they were opposed to the payment of the debt, contracted in the 
maintenance of the Union, were inflicting cruelties upon de- 
fenceless colored people and the loyal whites in the South and 
were making the condition of the fomier much worse than it 
was when they were in slavery. It is only fairness to General 
Grant to add that a fuller investigation afterwards led him to 
the same conclusion as that now maintained by Sumner. And 
later, when the subject became one of the great issues of his 
party, during his Presidency, he and Sumner stood loyally 
together upon this question. 

On the ninth day of January, 1866, Sumner called attention 
to thQ fact that freedmen were being kidnapped and carried, 



543 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

from the South to Brazil and Cuba where they were sold as 
slaves. He olTered a resolution, directing the Judiciary Com- 
mittee to inquire if further legislation were needed to prevent 
this revival of the slave trade. That committee a month later 
reported a bill to prevent and punish kidnapping which was 
passed by both Houses and, with the approval of the Presi- 
dent, became a law, on May twenty-first. 

Sumner insisted upon the equal title of the colored people 
to all the rights of the white. He would admit of no distinc- 
tion. He believed that Congress, especially after the adoption 
of the constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, had power 
to secure this object, by direct legislation. Others differed from 
him and thought it should be accomplished, by a constitutional 
amendment. At the opening of the session a joint committee on 
Eeconstruction had been appointed by the two Houses, of which 
Thaddeus Stevens was the House Chairman and Fessenden of 
Maine was the Senate Chairman. This Committee reported 
to the House, through its Chairman Stevens, a proposition for 
an amendment to the Constitution, indirectly reaching the ques- 
tion of equal suffrage. It was known from the name of its 
author, James G. Blaine, as the " Blaine Amendment." It 
proposed, in language different from what was afterwards in- 
corporated in the Fourteenth Amendment, that Kepresentatives 
should be apportioned among the States according to numbers 
and that whenever the election franchise should be denied by 
any State on account of race or color, all persons therein of such 
race or color should be excluded from the basis of representa- 
tion. The joint resolution for the amendment was adopted by 
the House on January thirty-first. The Senate Chairman of 
the joint committee gave notice that he would call for its con- 
sideration, by the Senate, on February fifth. The right of open- 
ing the debate belonged to liim as Chairman of the committee, 
but he yielded the floor to Sumner, who commenced the debate 
with an elaborate speech, running into two days. He spoke 
for about two hours during the afternoon of each day. The 
printed speech entitled " Equal Rights of All " occupies one 
hundred pages of his published works. It is one of the most 
elaborately prepared speeches he ever delievered. 

He opposed the amendment. He insisted that in the Declara- 
tion of Independence as well as in the Constitution, no 
expression had been permitted to contradict the foundation 
principle of our government that all men are created equal. To 
permit this amendment to be inserted, recognized a distinction 
based upon color and gave the choice to the Southern States 
to refuse the black race the ballot, if they were willing thereby 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 543 

to reduce the numbei- of their own Congressmen. An amend- 
ment should be an improvement, but this was like the crab, 
which travelled backward. He afterwards declared that it re- 
minded him of that leg of mutton served for Dr. Johnson's 
dinner, on the road from London to Oxford, which he described : 
" as bad, as bad could be, — ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill- 
dressed." He insisted that the Constitution required the United 
States to guarantee to every state a republican form of govern- 
ment and likewise that Congress should enforce the prohibition 
of slavery by appropriate legislation. He therefore offered, by 
way of counter proposition, a joint resolution declaring all per- 
sons equal before the law, whether in the court-room or at the 
ballot box. The power of Congress to pass siicli a law he believed 
to be ample without requiring the formality of a constitutional 
amendment. He dwelt at great length upon the meaning of 
the terms republican form of government, which was required 
bv the Constitution to be guaranteed to the States. He argued 
that it meant simply a government where all men are equal 
in rights, and which derives it powers from the consent of the 
governed and that neither existed, where black men were de- 
prived of the right of suffrage, that when they were taxed, with- 
out being permitted to vote, it was the same taxation without 
representation that our fathers had pronounced tyranny and had 
fought against in our war for Independence. He insisted that 
the rebel states were not republican, that it was the duty of 
Congress to see that they were made so. The Constitution re- 
quired it. To those, therefore, who asked to amend it, he could 
only retort, in the words of the magistrate to an advocate, who, 
dissatisfied with the ruling of the court, threatened to burn 
his book, "Better read it." The equal ballot would be peace- 
maker and reconciler to the South as well as schoolmaster and 
friend to the negro. Had he been given it sooner, we could 
have had no war, for his vote would have defeated the acts of 
Secession. We owed it to him, because in the time of War, he 
had aided our deliverance. 

The speech was listened to, by a large audience. The 
Chamber and its galleries w^ere filled, before the hour for open- 
ing, at each afternoon session. Senator Pomeroy of Kansas, in 
hearty sympathy with Sumner, in his efforts for equal suff- 
rage, occupied the chair. Many members of the House, with 
Ministers and" members of the Foreign Embassies, two Cabinet 
officers and others, having the privileges of the floor came in, 
to occupy seats in the chamber. Many members of the colored 
race, among them some soldiers occupied seats in the gallery. 
He was frequently interrupted by marks of approval and when, 



544 L,IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

on the second day, he reached his close the vast audience burst 
into applause. It was some minutes before the Presiding 
Officer could secure order. 

The speech had less of the controversial spirit in it than most 
of Sumner's. It was full of the subject in hand, treating it 
with frankness, alluding to the views of his opponents with 
respect and with fairness. Its effective and happy illustra- 
tions aided in holding the interest of his listeners. It was 
favorably commented upon by men of all paVties. In this 
respect it was noticeably different from some of his earlier 
speeches that had evoked so much bitterness. It was published 
in the Independent, whose proprietor, Henry C. Bowen,-was 
among his auditors, and in an extra of the New York Tribune; 
was largely copied into other papers; and it was widely read. 
It noticeably raised the tone of feeling towards equal suffrage. 

These speeches made by Sumner served to widen the breach 
between President Johnson and Congress. The President was 
opposed to extending the right of suffrage to the colored men, 
believing it would result in a war of the races. He stood 
ready, therefore, to counteract any favorable impression that 
such speeches might make. On the day after the delivery of this 
one, he was visited by a delegation of colored men who urged 
him to use his influence to secure suffrage for their race. He 
answered with feeling that he was the friend of the black race 
and that he did not like to be arraigned by some one, who 
could get up rounded periods and deal in rhetoric, but who had 
never perilled life, liberty or property for them, that the policy 
urged, if persisted in, he believed would result in great injury 
to both races and the ruin of one or the other. He said 
sneeringly to another colored delegation that he supposed Sum- 
ner was their God. From the steps of the Wliite House, on 
February twenty-second, he threw away all reserve. On the 
nineteenth of February he had vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau 
Bill, designed to remedy some defects in the law passed at a 
previous session. The President had before vetoed this bill. 
After some changes it was returned to him again. It was now 
certain, as changed, to pass over his veto. He had vetoed the 
civil rights bill and it had been passed over his veto. It did 
not take a careful observer to see that a deplorable relation of 
the two departments of the government was impending. 

The veto of the Freedman's Bureau Bill on February nine- 
teenth was followed on February twenty-second, by a large pop- 
ular meeting in Washington to approve the President's action. 
It adjourned to the White House, to congratulate the Presi- 
dent. He met them, at the door, and made a speech of some 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8VMNER 545 

length. " I have," said the President, in the course of his re- 
marks, " fought traitors and treason in the South. I opposed 
Davis, Toombs, Slidell and a long list of others, whose names I 
need not repeat ; and now, when I turn around at the other end 
of the line, I find men — I care not by what name you call them 
(a voice: 'Call them traitors') — who still stand opposed to 
the restoration of the Union of these States. (A voice: 'Give 
us their names.') A gentleman calls for their names. Well! 
suppose I should give them ? I look upon them I repeat it as 
President or citizen, as being as much opposed to the funda- 
mental principles of this Government, and I believe they are 
as much laboring to prevent or destroy them as were the men 
who fought against them in the Eebellion. (A voice : ' Give us 
the names.') I say Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. (Tre- 
mendous applause.) I say Charles Sumner. (Tremendous 
applause.) I say Wendell Phillips, and others of the same 
stripe are among them. (A voice: ' Give it to Forney.') Some 
gentleman in the crowd says, ' Give it to Forney,' I have only to 
say I do not waste my ammunition upon dead ducks." (Laugh- 
ter and applause.) * * * Some one had spoken in Congress of 
the Presidential obstacle to be gotten out of the way. He in- 
terpreted this as threatening personal violence to himself, " I 
make use," he said, " of a very strong expression when I say that 
I have no doubt the intention was to incite assassination and so 
get out of the way the obstacle to place and power. Whether 
by assassination or not there are individuals in this Govern- 
ment, I doubt not, who want to destroy our institutions and 
change the character of the Government. Are they not satis- 
fied with the blood that has been shed? Does not the murder 
of Lincoln appease the vengeance and wrath of the opponents of 
this Government ? Are they still unslaked ? Do they still want 
more blood? I am not afraid of the assassin attacking me, 
where a brave and courageous man would attack another. I 
only dread him when he would go in disguise, his footstep 
noiseless. If it is blood they want let them have courage 
enough to strike like men." 

This speech made a wretched impression upon the country. 
Its want of taste, in selecting men, who were honored officials 
of the Government and respected citizens, and naming them 
personally, to be jeered at by a crowd upon the street, merely 
because lie could not agree with them upon political questions, 
was thought to be an offence against good breeding unworthy of 
the chief magistrate of a great people. To insinuate that they 
were traitors and associate them in likeness with others, who 
had notoriously led in an effort to destroy the ISTation, to assume 



546 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

that his political opponents were instigating assassination and 
that as Lincoln had fallen a victim of a spirit of hostility 
engendered in the South by the passions of the War, so he was 
in danger of falling, before a similar spirit, in the North, men 
construed as an unworthy attempt to associate himself with the 
martyr President, absurdly without foundation in fact. 

In Massachusetts where Sumner's career was regarded with 
pride, as a peculiar possession of those who had maintained 
him by their votes, the President's conduct was viewed with 
some resentment. The Legislature being in session, a resolution 
was adopted, by both Houses, declaring the language used and 
charges made to be unbecoming a President, an unjust reflec- 
tion upon Massachusetts and without the shadow of justifica- 
tion or defence. A copy of this resolution, engrossed on parch- 
ment, was forwarded to Sumner by the Governor, with the 
request that it be accepted and preserved. The Board of 
Aldermen of the city of Boston unanimously adopted and con- 
veyed a similar resolution recognizing his great services and 
indignantly repudiating as utterly false " any accusation which 
likened him to the traitor chiefs of the Eebellion." The New 
England Conference of the M. E. Church, by resolution, also 
communicated to him, pronounced it " an unjustifiable asr^ault, 
upon his reputation," likened to that of Brooks, upon his person. 
In other more private ways the same sentiment was conveyed 
to him. Sumner never made any answer or allusion to the 
speech. 

The speech of Sumner on the resolution for the submission 
of the amendment to the Constitution and the substitute he 
offered, was followed by a succession of speeches on the same 
questions occupying, with some intermissions, the attention of 
Congress for a month. Pessenden opposed Sumner's substitute. 
He was one of the ablest men in the Senate, with a clear, 
sharp, incisive manner of speech, always directly to the point 
but sometimes inclined, perhaps owing to ill-health, to undue 
severity. He had seemed severe to Sumner, when discussing his 
speech and his substitute. During the debate Sumner spoke 
briefly twice more, in reply to the others and especially to Pes- 
senden. 

" Pardon me. Sir," he said in reply to Pessenden, " if I re- 
mind 5^ou that there are two modes of debate. One is to attack 
the previous speaker, with personality of criticism or manner. 
The other is to speak plainly on the question and to deal di- 
rectly, according to your convictions, M'ith the principles in- 
volved. Sometimes the two modes are allowed to intermingle. 
If ever there was occasion when the first should be carefully 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 517 

avoided, when the question alone should be liandled, and not 
the previous speaker, when attention should be directed exclu- 
sively to principles involved, and not to any subordinate point 
of mere form, it is now, when we are asked to insert a new 
provision in the Constitution, fixing the basis of political power, 
at the expense of fellow-citizens counted by millions. In this 
spirit, I shall try to speak. To my mind, the occasion is 
too solemn for personal controversy, and I shall not be drawn 
into it." 

He was not drawn into it, but contented himself with a re- 
statement of his own position and the giving of additional 
arguments and authorities, in support of it. 

Before the close of the debate, Henderson of Iowa moved to 
strike out Sumner's substitute and insert in its stead a constitu- 
tional amendment securing suffrage to colored citizens. He 
doubted the power of Congress to reach the evil by a simple 
enactment, but thought the change better to be embodied in 
the Constitution. Sumner declared he was in favor of his 
motion, and he voted for it, but it received only ten votes. 
The vote was then taken on Sumner's substitute and it received 
only eight votes. Other amendments were proposed and voted 
down. But when the vote was finally reached, on the House 
Proposition for the Constitutional Amendment, it too failed. 
This was a bitter disappointment to its friends, who held Sum- 
ner largely accountable for it. Stevens, the House Chairman 
of the joint committee, said : " It was slaughtered, by a puerile 
and pedantic criticism, by a perversion of philological def- 
inition, which if, when I taught school, a lad who had studied 
Lindley IMurray had assumed, I would have expelled him from 
the institution as unworthy to waste education upon. * * * 
Let us again try and see whether we cannot devise some way to 
overcome the united forces of self-righteous Eepublicans and 
unrighteous Copperheads." 

It was argued, l)y Republican Members of both Houses, that 
it would not do for Congress to go to the country, after so 
much effort, without having adopted the resolution. It w'as 
urged that Uepublicans generally were in favor of it. It was 
therefore amended and resubmitted and finally passed both 
Houses. It provided for the submission to the States, what is 
now the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In this 
new form Sumner voted for it, but did not again debate it. In 
its new form, it had no recognition of exclusion from the fran- 
chise on account of " race or color," so as to injure the text of 
the Constitution, which recognized no race or color, nor would 
it give a pretext for changing the definition of the republican 



548 J-'iPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

form of government, which was required to be guaranteed to 
the States. It liad a clause added, defining wlio are citizens 
of the United States, so as to include colored persons, assuring 
for all the equal protection of the laws. Another clause had 
been added disqualifying all persons from holding office, State 
or National, who had previously taken an oath of office, as 
Senator, Eepresentative or officer of the United States or as 
Legislator or executive or judicial officer of any State, to support 
the Constitution and had afterwards engaged in the Eebellion 
unless this disability was first removed by a two-thirds vote of 
each House. Still another clause was added protecting the Na- 
tional debt and annulling all debts contracted in aid of the Re- 
bellion and all claims for the loss or emancipation of slaves. 
All these provisions not found in the original, Sumner believed 
counterbalanced the evil he still saw in it. 

Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by 
the States so as to make it a part of the Constitution, Sumner's 
object was accomplished in other ways. Congress took juris- 
diction of the elective franchise in the Confederate States and 
required that in voting upon any constitution preparatory to 
reconstruction there should be no exclusion on account of race or 
color and that this prohibition should also be embodied in such 
instruments. Equal suffrage was afterwards established by the 
Fifteenth Amendment which provided that the right of citizens 
to vote should " not be denied or abridged by the United States 
or by any State on account of race or color or previous condi- 
tion of servitude." But these steps were slowly taken as will be 
seen, after much argument and effort, by the pioneers on these 
questions. Among these pioneers Sumner was fairly entitled 
to be named first. A persuasion of the necessity for extending 
the franchise to the colored men, owing to conditions in the 
South, as well as justice to them at last prevailed. Though 
the policy of thus extending suffrage has been and is still, in 
certain States, a much vexed question, it must be conceded by 
all that it was one of the great events of our political history. 
It has already added a chapter of interesting history to every 
Southern State and it has played an important part in the set- 
tlement of every National question since its adoption. 

It has been seen how close were the votes, in the Senate, on 
the resolution to submit this Amendment. It required a two- 
thirds vote of each House. Though the Republicans had that 
many, the margin was so small that the defection of a few was 
sufficient to change the result. Owing to the defection of Presi- 
dent Johnson his veto would also defeat any measure he de- 
sired, unless the Republicans could pass it over his veto by a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 549 

two-thirds vote. The frequency of tliose vetoes had already 
startled the Republicans. Party sti:ength which had seemed 
ample, for all purposes, when he was elected, was now 
carefully husbanded. The credentials of new members were 
closely scanned. The spur of party feeling was not wanting. 
The bitterness engendered by the war had not abated in Con- 
gress, for the President's course had served to augment it 
there. 

It was this situation that confronted John P. Stockton of 
New Jersey, when, at this session, he presented his credentials 
to a seat in the Senate. The previous winter had seen a strug- 
gle over his election. After many etforts it was found that no 
one could secure a majority of all the members elected to each 
House of the Legislature, as their rule provided. This rule 
was, therefore, changed by a resolution at a joint meeting of the 
two Houses, so that only a plurality of the votes of the members 
present at a joint meeting was required. Under this rule 
Stockton was elected. Thirty-eight members of the Legislature 
forwarded to the Senate a protest against his admission. 
At the opening of the session, he had appeared and taken the 
oath as Senator. The validity of his title to a seat was referred 
to the Judiciary Committee, which reported in his favor. The 
question came up, in the Senate, on March twenty-third, 1866. 
Sumner opposed the adoption of the report for two reasons. He 
urged that his title was invalid because ; first, a majority of each 
House was necessary. This he said was the practice in Massa- 
chusetts and, he urged, was the proper practice, although he 
admitted a different one obtained in some other States. Sec- 
ond, because the joint meeting of the two Houses of the Legis- 
lature of ISTew Jersey had no right, by resolution, to fix the 
manner of the choice. It should be done by a law regularly 
passed by the Legislature or by Congress. He cited authority 
in support of both positions. 

When the question came to a vote on the adoption of the 
report of the committee, the vote stood twenty-one to twenty, 
when Morrill of Maine asked to have his name called. This 
was done and it resulted in a tie. Thereupon Stockton arose 
and said that Morrill was paired with his colleague Wright, who 
was at home sick. He, therefore, asked his name to be called, 
which being done, he voted for the adoption of the report and 
it carried, twenty-two to twenty-one. This action was taken on 
Friday. 

On the following Monday, Sumner moved to amend the 
journal of Friday by striking out the vote of Stockton. He 
argued that no one could be a judge in his own case, and to per- 



550 I-iFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

mit this vote to stand was to aflRrm that he could be. The 
Senate passed a resolution that the vote be not received, and 
afterwards voted him not entitled to his seat, upon a recon- 
sideration of the question. It was a mistake for him to vote. 
If he had not, it would have been a tie and he occupying a seat 
would have been left in possession of it. By voting he fur- 
nished a pretext for opening the question and it resulted in him 
being ousted. 

Stockton, being a Democrat, if permitted to retain his 
seat, would doubtless have voted with his party to sustain the 
President's vetoes. This would have prevented the passage of 
some important legislation of the session, notably the Civil 
Riglits Bill, which had been vetoed and was passed, in the Sen- 
ate over his veto, by only one vote. Sumner was charged with 
having brought about his ouster, for partisan purposes. But the 
charge was hardly fair. To permit a Senator to vote on his own 
right to a seat, was clearly an improper precedent to establish 
and Sumner did right to secure its correction. Hitherto under 
the influence of the Southern doctrine of State Rights, the 
policy had been to enhirge the powers of the States and re- 
strict those of the Nation. Hence the fixing of the manner of 
the choice of Senators had been left to the States, the Consti- 
tution providing that the State Legislatures might prescribe 
the manner, but that Congress might alter it. The attitude to- 
ward tlie doctrine of State Rights being changed by the war, 
and being admonished by the Stockton Case, Congress, at this 
session, assumed jurisdiction of the subject and fixed by law 
a uniform rule for making the choice. 

Wlien this bill was before the Senate, Sumner opposed and 
assisted in defeating an amendment to it ofi^ered by Fessenden 
to permit each Legislature to settle whether the vote should be 
taken viva voce or by ballot. Sumner insisted that as the votes 
were given in a representative capacity, they should be cast 
openly so that everyone might know how each member voted. 
He favored secret voting at popular elections, but open voting 
for the election of Senators. 

Sumner continued the fight for equal rights on the measures 
that were offered at this session for the admission of three 
States. Two of them, Colorado and ISTebraska, were Territories 
while the third, Tennessee, had lost the right of Stateliood by 
lier participation in the Rebellion. Sumner insisted tliat none 
of these should be admitted till provision be made in its con- 
stitution that there should be no denial of the electoral fran- 
chise or of any other rights, on account of race or color, but 
that all persons should be equal before the law. He argued in 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 551 

favor of such a restriction in each case, but Congress was not 
yet ready to take such an advanced stand. He could summon to 
his position at this time only four to seven votes, in the Senate, 
Curiously enough one of these was Gratz Brown of Missouri, 
who was soon to be the Democratic candidate for Vice-Presi- 
dent, on the ticket with Greeley. Tennessee was admitted with- 
out such a constitutional provision, Sumner voting against it. 
The bill for Nebraska passed both Houses, but was vetoed by 
the President. Tliat for Colorado met the same fate. At the 
next session, the bill for the admission of Nebraska passed with 
the requirement for equal suffrage in it. Tlien the Colorado 
bill was taken up and this condition inserted and then it passed 
both Houses, but was vetoed by the President ; and it failed to 
pass, over the veto, for the want of the necessary two-thirds 
vote, in the Senate. The few votes that Sumner was able to_ 
command were sufficient to dictate the insertion of the pro- 
vision for equal rights, in the contest with the President. 

During the debate on Colorado, Sumner was chided with the 
suggestion that its admission would create two more votes, in 
the Senate, much needed by the Republicans. " Tell me not,"' 
he retorted, "that it is ex^pedient to create two more votes in 
this Chamber. Nothing can be expedient that is not right. If 
I were now about to pronounce the last words that I could ever 
utter in this Chamber, I would say to you. Senators, do not for- 
get that right is always the highest expediency. You can never 
sacrifice the right without suffering for it." 

Among those who thus far had opposed Sumner's efforts for 
political equality for the black race and had inclined toward 
the President was Cowan of Pennsylvania. He was elected as 
a Republican. The next elections went strongly against the 
President. After they were over and the debate on the admis- 
sion of Nebraska came up, in the next session, Cowan voted 
with Sumner. His conversion came somewhat awkwardly to 
him and he was disposed to treat the question humorously. In 
the Senate one day, he said : 

" My honorable friend, the Senator from Massachusetts, is 
six feet three inches in height, and weighs two hundred and 
twenty pounds ; I am six feet three inches in height and weigh 
one hundred and ninety pounds, if you please. That is not 
equality. My honorable friend from Maine here is five feet 
nine inches. 

Fessenden. ^' And a half." (Laughter.) 

Cowan. " I beg the honorable Senator's pardon. I would not 
diminish his stature an inch or half an inch, nor take a hair 
from his head ; and he weighs one hundred and forty pounds. 



552 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

if you please. Is tliat equality? The honorable Senator from 
Massachusetts is largely learned ; there is nothing, I think, that 
he does not know, that is worth knowing, — and this is no empty 
compliment that I desire to pay him now ; and he is so much 
wiser than I am, that at the last elections he divined exactly 
how they would result, and I did not. (Laughter.) He rode 
triumphantly upon the popular wave ; and I was overwhelmed, 
and came out with eyes and nose suffused, and hardly able to 
gasp." 

Sumner. " You ought to have followed my advice." 

Cowan. " Why should I not ? What was Providence doing 
in that? If Providence had made me equal to the honorable 
Senator I should not have needed his counsel, and I should have 
ridden, too, on the topmost wave." 

Sumner's position among his fellow-Senators was now a com- 
manding one. His counsel was sought and respected. He was 
never a strict party man, but he knew the value of organization. 
He knew that little good could be accomplished, in public life, 
without it. But he placed principle above party and preferred 
his own convictions of duty to the opinion of the caucus; had 
great faith in discussion and so h^ would discuss and agitate 
and argue, till he would convert others to his own position. 
How often during his career he appeared in defence of a princi- 
ple with only three or four supporters and kept on gathering 
support until he triumphed, is now a cause for remark. 
Through it all he preserved the respect and confidence of his 
associates. Sometimes they were impatient at his persistence in 
pushing his own measures to the front and insisting on action 
upon them to the exclusion of other business, that they wished 
to forward. Sometimes his disposition to argue wearied them. 
But they all admitted his high character, his wonderful learn- 
ing and his great industry, his firm hope to make his career in 
the Senate a useful one. With those who served longest with 
him, this feeling was most marked. A strong tie grew up be- 
tween them, that either saw broken with sorrow. 

During the present session, he was called upon three times 
to commemorate friends with whom he sadly parted. Henry 
Winter Davis, after a brilliant career of eight years in the 
House had died on December 30, 1865, and Senators Collamer 
and Foot, both from Vermont, had died, one earlier, and one 
later than Davis. All three were prominent in the questions 
that grew out of the War. It was therefore with sadness that 
he saw them laid away. He commemorated all three, Davis 
by an article published in the ISTew York Independent and the 
others by appreciative tributes in the Senate. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 553 

Of Collamer he feelingly said: "Since Henry Clay left this 
Chamber by the gate of death, no Senator has passed that way 
crowned with the same honorable years as Mr. Collamer; nor 
has any Senator passed that way whose departure created such 
a blank in the public counsels, unless we except Mr. Douglas." 
He reviewed his career in the Senate, pausing to emphasize two 
occasions when his fearless independence had shown forth with 
marked effect. One already mentioned in these pages, was in 
opposing the majority report of the Committee on Territories 
to which the whitewashing message of President Buchanan 
on the Kansas troubles had been referred. The other was when 
Collamer, with equal or greater courage, opposed the President 
of his own party, then the triumphant chieftain of the ISTorth, 
in his unwarranted exercise of power in the institution of civil 
governments for the unreconstructed States, " to last beyond 
the war ". In the one case he opposed executive power insti- 
gated by Jefferson Davis and in the other when wielded " by the 
gentle hand of Abraham Lincoln." But in both cases it was 
the firm hand of the conscientious Senator opposing the un- 
warranted exercise of power by the President and presenting 
an inspiring example to otljprs in good works. 

Foote was the oldest Senator in continuous service. He had 
entered in the spring before Sumner. Sumner's service 
commenced with the opening of the session in December. Only 
one other. Wade, now remained of equal length of service with 
Sumner. Yet Sumner was destined to remain for almost nine 
years more, five years after Wade. Foote was a retiring man, 
slow to express opinions, but firm in his conduct and like his 
colleague Collamer, of unquestioned courage. Giddings had at 
the beginning assured Sumner that he could be depended on, in 
the struggle against slavery, and had pleasantly recalled how 
on Foote's first visit to the House, after he took his seat in the 
Senate, he had seemed indifferent to criticism by asserting his 
friendship for Giddings, the anti-slavery leader, in the days 
when slavery tyrannized public life. He was thus firm in his 
convictions, yet he was so forgetful of self that he would will- 
ingly waive a right of his own, in the appointments to com- 
mittees, so as to give important places, assigned to himself, to 
others who desired them. " There was no jealousy, envy or un- 
charitableness in him," said Sumner. " He enjoyed what others 
did, and praised generously. He knew that his own just posi- 
tion could not be disturbed by the success of another. What- 
ever another may be, whether more or less, a man must always 
be himself. A true man is a positive, and not a relative quan- 
tity. Properly inspired, he will know that in a just sense, no- 



554 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER. 

body can stand in the way of another." Foote had shown talent 
as a presiding officer, which was recognized by the Senate in 
making him for a considerable time its President pro tern. His 
firmness and fairness fitted him for such duties. He had little 
taste for controversy, seldom spoke in the Senate, but for the 
less brilliant though not less useful work of a Senator he was 
pre-eminent. 

During this session Sumner made some short speeches in 
favor of non-partisan measures, which, after years of discus- 
sion, have reached realization. They show his wisdom as a 
statesman. Among these may be named his speech for the 
survey of a ship-canal across the isthmus of Panama, one for 
the metric system of weights and measures, another for the 
power of Congress to provide against cholera from abroad, still 
another for its power to provide against a cattle plague. He 
also wrote in favor of an international copyright for authors. 
All of these show him far in advance of the sentiment of that 
time. 

His effort for a codification of the United States statutes 
which he commenced with his first session in the Senate and 
had renewed repeatedly since, wa^ successful at this session. 
The bill was passed and Caleb Cusliing, of Massachusetts, was 
one of the Commissioners appointed. 

The hard work of this session told seriously on Sumner's 
health. The session lasted till about August first and his labor 
had been excessive. There were reappearances of his nervous 
troubles which had resulted from the Brooks assault. He was 
obliged to consult his former physician, Dr. Brown-Sequard, 
then in America. Later he made a brief excursion to the White 
Mountains. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER — HER CHARACTER — HIS MARRIAGE 

On the fifteenth day of June, 1866, Sumner met the loss by 
death of his mother. She was eighty-one years of age. He had 
never married and of her nine children he was the only one 
who continued his home with her. All the others were dead, 
save tlie youngest, Julia, who had married Dr. John Hastings, 
of San Francisco, California, in 1854. During the last years 
of her life Mrs. Hastings suffered from ill-health and though 
she survived her brother, dying in 1876, she did not visit the 
Atlantic States after 1862. Her three daughters were the only 
living grandchildren. So that he was left alone to comfort his 
mother's declining years. During his absence in Washington, 
she continued at their home in Boston, with a companion ; but 
when not occupied with Ijis duties in the Senate, he usually 
spent his time there with her. 

It was the same old home, No. 20, Hancock Street, that 
Sheriff Sumner had bought thirty-six years before, after the 
improvement of his fortunes by his office, and to which he tlien 
removed his family. During 1867, a little more than a year 
after the mother's death it was sold out of the family. It 
was well located in one of the higher and better parts of Boston, 
not far from the State House. No effort had been made to 
change it to correspond to a larger life. It continued the same 
comfortable and substantial liome, that had sheltered him in 
his boyhood. There peace and happiness, the usual accompani- 
ments of good sense and good habits, prevailed. From day to 
day through the long twenty-seven years of her widowhood, the 
spirit of contentment her life cast about it never changed. It 
was just, as we think, such a retreat from the turmoil of his 
stormy career as he needed. There he could always find quiet, 
grateful rest. And while she lived he never sought, and when 
she died he never found, another like it. There too she grew 
gracefully older and as the weight of years fell gently upon her, 
she came to lean more heavily upon the stronger arm of her 
son. 

She was an ideal mother, a woman of strong common sense 
with a sweet disposition ; these were her prevailing traits. It 
will be remembered that her ancestors had been farmers, well- 
555 



556 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to-do and marked by good sense and good habits, leading plain 
lives, close to nature and apart from the conventionalities of 
crowded cities; that- her father had died when she was only 
fourteen years of age, leaving her and one sister in the care of 
a widowed mother, where she was taught habits of economy 
and industry and gained some training in the elementary 
branches taught in a public school. She was married while 
earning her living, with her needle, in Boston and though hov 
husband was then poor she was able to raise their family with 
comfort and keep within his income; and though his income 
was afterwards increased by his office, it was not wasted but, 
largely owing to her, he left in her hands an estate worth about 
fifty thousand dolhirs, for her during life and then to distribute 
to their children. This trust, she executed so faithfully that 
when she died the property had accumulated to the value of 
more than a hundred thousand dollars and was then equally 
divided between their surviving children. 

The same sensible conduct, as in the use of her husband's 
property, was observable in the treatment of their children. 
The care of them she assumed herself, never when she could do 
otherwise, entrusting it to others. Three of her daughters died, 
in early womanhood, after a lingering illness and her husband 
had likewise died after months of confinement. It will be 
remembered that Charles had suffered from a long sickness in 
early manhood, when his life was despaired of for some weeks. 
Yet she was the constant nurse of them all, day and night. 
She assumed and retained to the end the management of her 
own house. As she grew older her thoughts centered with 
pardonable pride in her son. Her thoughts went out to him 
when he was absent, watching his public career and looking 
forward eagerly to his coming home. It so happened that the 
last letter he wrote her was during this session of Congress in 
answer to an inquiry prompted by her, for his health, which 
she had heard was not good. His answer full of tenderness, 
and expressing solicitude for her comfort, quieted her fears by 
assuring her that his sickness was not serious, but only a slight 
indisposition, caused by overwork. 

She was tall and spare in build. All her life long she had 
enjoyed good health and, when she died, it was of no particular 
disease but only from a general failure; she was worn out with 
age. It had been apparent for some months that she could not 
last long; so by an arrangement with her physician, he wrote 
weekly letters to the son, to keep him informed of her condi- 
tion. He was summoned at last by telegraph and reached her 
bed several days before her death and remained with her to the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 557 

end, the only one of her once large family present to pay this 
debt. It was the close of a life of noble Christian womanhood 
and the end came peacefully, as to one whose work was well 
done and for whom " joy conieth in the morning." 

He had been a devoted son. The father, somewhat stern in 
his manner, had turned the child's aifectious to the mother. 
She was kindly, sympathetic and sweet; and the tendrils of his 
young heart had gathered in affection about her, never to be 
unfolded again. Though the father had marked out his career, 
directed his studies and controlled his habits; she had en- 
couraged his childish efforts, softened the hard places and 
sweetened the cup of his early life. Her good sense never for- 
sook her and it was a never failing source of comfort to him. 
Even in mature years, though by training he had grown in other 
directions than hers, he found her cool head and good judgment 
a safe counsellor. And he repaid the debt. Her comfort was 
always a consideration with him. When at home he conformed 
to her habits and simple way of living, assisted her in the 
management of the father's estate, and maintained the peaceful 
tenor of her life. By continuing his home with her, she was 
spared the feeling that she was old and of no use, but only an in- 
cumbrance to others, — a feeling that often fosters the wish to 
be away and at rest. While she lived, he never felt that he was 
free to contract another relation and this feeling was so strong 
that had she survived he probably never would have married. 

After her death he felt for the first time that he had the 
means and was at liberty to get married. He had been meeting 
for some time in Washington, at the home of Samuel Hooper, 
a Member of Congress from Boston, the widow of his son. She 
was formerly Miss Alice Mason, of Boston, a niece of Jeremiah 
Mason, Daniel Webster's old competitor at the bar. She was 
a beautiful and attractive young woman, of slender and stately 
form, highbred manner and aristocratic reserve, one of the 
noticeably fascinating women in Washington society; but 
somewhat spoiled by the homage she had received, had an ex- 
tremely variable disposition which she could show in teasing or 
in temper, and she was fond of society and was ambitious, with 
the disposition to rule the circle in which she moved. She was 
the mother of one child, a daughter of eight years. For 
some time Sumner had been attracted to her. In the Sep- 
tember following the death of his mother, their engagement was 
announced. She was then but twenty-eight years of age ; while 
he was fifty-five. The announcement was the occasion of nu- 
merous congratulatory letters from his friends, Bancroft, Whit- 
tier, Longfellow, Howe, Licbcr^ the Duchess of Sutherland, 



558 J-^F^ OF CHARLES 8UMNER. 

the Argylls, Robert Ingham, from Chief-Justice Chase, Hamil- 
ton Fish, Mrs. Lincoln and others, who were rejoiced to learn 
of the contemplated change in his life. They had known him 
so long and seen him so nnich, in a social way, that they conld 
not view the marriage otherwise than as fraught with happiness 
to both. 

The void created by the death of his mother, which he felt 
during the following recess of Congress when the door of his 
old home in Boston was no longer open, had easily carried his 
thoughts forward to such a new life. Her presence in Wash- 
ington presiding with noticeable grace in one of the homes, 
where he was always welcome, — welcome even after the 
break came and his married life had ended — easily lent en- 
ch-antment to the proposed change. At the home of the Eep- 
resentative from Boston, the Senator was naturally present 
often and saw much of her. They were at Washington during 
the sessions and when Congress adjourned they were at Boston 
together. They met at a home of affluence and culture where a 
graceful hospitality was dispensed. It conformed to his taste, 
and when contemplating the establishment of a home of his 
own he naturally wished it to be one like this. 

Yet the hope had not been, in its happiest anticipation, with- 
out solicitude. Less than a month before his marriage, he 
wrote Bancroft : " I tremble sometimes at the responsibility I 
assume. I am to make another happy ; for unless I do this, 
there can be no happiness for me and my idea will be quenched 
in darkness. But the good God that gave me this new life will, 
I trust, protect it. If you knew how little of design or will 
there was in what has occurred, you would see the Providence 
which has ruled." 

On the seventeenth day of October, 1866, they were married. 
The intervening weeks before the opening of Congress, they 
spent at Newport and at his old home at Boston. At the open- 
ing of the session in December, they took a house in Washing- 
ton, bought a team, rented a pew in church and settled down 
to housekeeping there. His health was now fully restored 
and he was rejoicing in the bright anticipation of happiness 
in this new relation. He felt the inspiration of the high place 
he held in public life and though accompanied with added 
labor he turned to the work of the session with renewed ardor. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

PARKER FRATERNITY LECTURE — PRESIDENT JOHNSON AGAINST 
XIV AMENDMENT — ELECTION OF 1866 — TENURE OF OFFICE 
BILL — RECONSTRUCTION — EQUAL SUFFRAGE — PURCHASE OP 
ALASKA 

During this recess of Congress, on October second, 1866, 
Sumner delivered the opening lecture of the annual series of 
the Parker Fraternity, at Music Hall, Boston. His theme was, 
The One Man Power against Congress. It was a review of the 
policy and administration of President Johnson, up to that 
time, and recounted the interviews Sumner had with him, 
after the death of President Lincoln. Sumner had now 
assumed an attitude of pronounced opposition. He was per- 
suaded, and he did not hesitate to say that President Johnson 
Avas a Southerner, the successor in his sympathies and purposes 
to Jefferson Davis, and that his influence should be counter- 
acted by all loyal citizens and good men. He declared that the 
war had been fought at the expense of much blood and treasure 
and that the North had been victorious in the field, but that all 
the results of the war were being frittered away by the stubborn 
and perverse policy pursued by the President, that instead of 
building up governments in the Confederate States and recon- 
structing the National authority, from the sound materials, the 
Union men and the loyal citizens, he was using only that which 
was worn out, decayed and rotten, the Confederates who had 
been torn from their places of power by the war. Sumner in- 
sisted that the very reverse of this should be the policy, that the 
men who had fomented rebellion should all be excluded and new 
men of tried loyalty be entrusted with power. 

He argued that in acting upon the question of Reconstruc- 
! tion the President was usurping the power of Congress, that the 
1 Executive had no authority to decide questions of this kind, 
■ that the Rebel States by the Ordinances of Secession and the 
I support of rebellion had forfeited all rights of statehood and 
' reduced themselves to the condition of Territories and that it 
wns for Congress to determine by law upon what condition 
tlu'V were to be admitted as States. Jurisdiction of this im- 
portant subject, much to his regret. Congress had been slow in 
: assuming. It involved, in large measure, the benefits that were 
i 559 



560 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to be reaped from the war. If those who had constituted the 
Confederate armies and government, were to assume control, 
the same old troiibles that had led to the war miglit be expected 
to reappear. If the freedmen were given the ballot, they would 
unite with the loyal whites of the South and outnumber and 
outvote, and thus be able to control, the rebellious elements. He 
would therefore make the ballot to the freedmen an essential 
condition of Reconstruction. 

The President was unalterably opposed to extending the ballot 
to colored men. He had boldly and repeatedly predicted that 
such a concession would lead to a war between the races, with 
the possible extinction of the weaker. Therefore he was as- 
suming jurisdiction of the whole subject of reconstruction and 
was pressing forward to determine every question involved. 
He assumed that though they had rebelled and passed ordi- 
nances of secession, that the Confederate States had been con- 
quered and that thereby their ordinances of secession had been 
annulled and that they still held their place and were entitled 
to be treated as sister States just as if they had never attempted 
secession. Thus the line was sharply drawn between Congress 
and the President. Congress was assuming control of the 
matter as one for legislative determination, with the purpose of 
equal suffrage in view ; the President was assuming the question 
as settled and all that remained, was for the Executive to see 
the laws in force executed and oppose any change in the ballot, 
treating that within their limits as a matter for the considera- 
tion of the Confederate States alone. The situation was, Sum- 
ner insisted, that of " one man power against Congress." 

There were many persons who doubted the propriety of 
elevating to the franchise, freedmen, who had so lately been 
slaves and who were without education or experience to fit them 
for the duties of citizenship. Sumner felt the force of the sug- 
gestion. But he answered that their loyalty with ignorance was 
better than the education without loyalty, of the other class. 
He complained bitterly of the use of the pardoning power by 
the President to restore Confederates to places of power. He 
insisted that they should only be pardoned on condition that 
they give up a part of their large estates, so as to furnish home- 
steads to the freedmen, who when in slavery had helped to pile 
them up by their unrequited toil. The freedmen he urged 
were eager for such homes. These with education would place 
them in condition to care for themselves and do good for the 
country. 

The perversity of the President's course was shown during 
this summer. Congres^i had submitted the Fourteenth Amend- 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 561 

ment to tlie Constitution. It woTild not become a part of the 
Constitution until ratified by three-fourths of the States. Test- 
imony was abundant, from those who had been in the South at 
the close of the war, that the spirit of her people had been' 
broken and she was ready to perform all proper conditions laid 
upon her by the North to restore her States to their former 
place. It was believed that under such a firm and just hand as 
Lincoln's, there would have been no trouble and that restoration 
of good feeling under proper conditions for the freedmen, 
would have been easy. But President Johnson, by the perverse 
tone of his message and speeches, referring to the Southern as 
an oppressed people and the ruling party of the North as bent 
on humiliating them and preventing a peaceful union of the 
rival sections, had encouraged a spirit of defiance in the South 
and instead of submitting gracefully to reasonable conditions, 
she now wished to dictate herself what those conditions should 
be. It was now apparent that the President was attempting to 
defeat the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. He was 
in communication privately, with those who controlled the polit- 
ical action of the insurrectionary States and he was discour- 
aging them from voting for it. He was not willing his 
opponents in the North should have such a gratification. 

The result showed how successful he was. Every one of these 
States rejected it. The Legislatures of Florida, Mississippi and 
Louisiana, all rejected it unanimously. Virginia and South 
Carolina each gave it one vote ; Georgia, two ; Arkansas, three ; 
Texas, five ; Alabama, ten ; and North Carolina, eleven. It 
has since been shown conclusively that when one of these States 
proposed to reconsider its vote of rejection and those in control 
asked his advice, it was given against it and the reconsideration 
was not taken. 

The provisions of this Amendment were so eminently just 
that it is difficult to see how he could so control these States. 
If colored citizens were not allowed to vote, why should they 
be allowed by their numbers to increase the representation in 
Congress of the South, so that one vote in South Carolina could 
neutralize two votes in Massachusetts? Why should the pay- 
ment of the National debt contracted in a war to preserve the 
Union not be guaranteed by that restored Union ? Why should 
the debt of the Confederate Government contracted in a war 
to destroy that Union not be annulled ? Who was left to pay 
it? The Confederacy, that contracted it, was no more. Why 
should not all claims" for slaves emancipated as a necessary war 
measure to weaken the Confederacy, likewise be annulled? 
Could claims for railroads and bridges and stores destroyed by 



562 LJPi^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the invading armies of the North be paid? Why should not 
citizenship be defined so that it could be authoritatively settled 
by the Constitution vi'ho are citizens of the United States? Yet 
these were the essential features of the Amendment the South 
so flippantly rejected. 

Sumner argued that the conduct of the President in procur- 
ing the rejection of such an Amendment richly deserved the 
criticism of good citizens. His lecture was delivered during 
the campaign of 1866 and its purpose was to aid the opposition 
to the President's policy at the popular election and secure an 
indorsement for that of Congress. The campaign was one of 
peculiar activity, never perhaps equalled, except in a Presiden- 
tial year. Four national conventions were held ; two in Phila- 
delphia, one of the President's friends and one of his opponents, 
one of the soldiers friendly to him, in Cleveland; and one of 
the soldiers against him, at Pittsburg. The last was the great- 
est and most interesting of them all. The President, eager to 
secure an indorsement, made a journey to Chicago, ostensibly 
to be present at the laying of the cornerstone of the monument 
of Stephen A. Douglas, but in reality to make an electioneering 
tour, going by way of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Al- 
bany and thence westward by way of Cleveland to Chicago, 
returning by way of St. Louie, and speaking at many places 
along the route. This journey has ever since been popularly 
known as his " swinging around the circle." His speeches were 
marked by his usual want of taste on such occasions, coarse an- 
swers to rude remarks made by his auditors and violent abuse 
of Congress, all much to his own detriment. Petroleum V. 
Nasby, humorously pretending to support the President, de- 
scribed the tour, as undertaken to " arouse the people to the 
danger of concentrating power in the hands of Congress, in- 
stead of diffusing it through one man." 

The result of the election was overwhelmingly against the 
President. A Congress was elected, three to one against him. 
The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment had in many 
quarters till now, notably in the New York Eepublican Plat- 
form, been made the test of the fitness of a Confederate State 
to be restored to its place. But the election developed among 
the people a very strong sentiment in favor of the enfranchise- 
ment of the freedmen, as the only safe condition. Riots had 
occurred at New Orleans, Memphis and other places in the 
South, which were attributed to Johnson's influence. The peo- 
ple of the North concluded, as had Sumner before them, that 
the colored votes were needed in the South to counteract the 
Confederate influence. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 563 

Congress meeting soon after the elections, the two parties, to 
the contest before the people, met in no uncertain mood. Con- 
gress encouraged by its success was ready to press forward in 
the work it had begun ; the President with the self-centered, 
pugnacious sternness of his nature, angered by the election, was 
defiant and if possible more determined than ever. Neither 
side was in the humor for compromise. The session was largely 
occupied in devising and passing over his veto measures to 
limit his power. 

The President, though not disposed at first to make removals 
from office, had now adopted a different policy, and removals, 
of those who were recognized as his opponents, were being made 
with alarming frequency. A clerk in the Treasury Department, 
who asked leave of absence to attend the convention of soldiers 
held at Pittsburg, had been refused. He resigned his position 
and went and was made Temporary Chairman of the conven- 
tion. At St. Louis when " swinging around the circle " John- 
son declared, in words that afford a fair sample of his diction 
on this memorable trip, " I believe tliat one set of men have 
enjoyed the emoluments of office long enough, and they should 
let anotlier portion of the people have a chance. (Cheers.) 
How are these men to be got out (A voice, 'Kick 'em out!' — 
cheers and laughter), unless your Executive can put them out, 
— unless you can reach them through the President? Congress 
says he shall not turn them out, and they are trying to pass 
laws to prevent it being done. Well let me say to you, if you 
will stand by me in this action (cheers), — if you will stand by 
me in trying to give the people a fair chance, — to have soldiers 
and citizens to participate in these offices, — God being willing, I 
will kick them out, — I will kick them out just as fast as I 
can." (Great cheering.) 

This frank statement of his purpose, which men saw every 
day being carried out, startled Federal officeholders and their 
friends. On the day Congress opened, a bill was introduced to 
restrain this threatened wholesale dismissal. The measure was 
known as the Tenure of Office Bill, As passed, it provided that 
every person holding a civil office to which he had been ap- 
pointed, with the advice and consent of the Senate, should be 
entitled to hold the office until his successor would, in like man- 
ner, be appointed and qualified, excepting, however, that mem- 
bers of the Cabinet should hold their offices during the term of 
the President by whom they were appointed and for one month 
■ thereafter. The President might suspend an officer for cause 
during a recess of the Senate, but if the Senate at its next ses- 
sion refused to concur in the suspension then he was to be rein- 



564 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



stated. Any officer making the appointment and any person ac- 
cepting an office, contrary to the provisions of the act, was to be 
punished by fine or imprisonment; and under like penalty the 
payment of an officer out of the public treasury was forbidden. 
The intent of the whole law, therefore, was to prevent removal 
from office, except by consent of the Senate. 

The Constitution provided that appointments could not be 
made without the advice and consent of the Senate ; but it was 
silent on the subject of removals. The power of removal had 
been assumed, in practice, to belong to the President alone and 
he had always exercised it at will, though not always without 
question. There had been discussion of the question, notably 
in the time of Jackson when he sought to enforce his maxim 
that " to the victors belong the spoils," by wholesale removals 
to provide places for his friends. But the better authority 
was with the President's claim of right to remove at will with- 
out consulting the Senate. 

Sumner favored the Tenure of Office Bill and spoke in its 
favor, arguing that it was the duty of the Senate to protect 
these officeholders against the President, who had become, he 
declared, " the enemy of his country." He was called to order 
by McDougall of California, a Democratic member, for the use 
of this expression when speaking of the President. The Chair 
sustained Sumner and he proceeded after some farther inter- 
ruption. As there was some question about the words he had 
used, he proceeded to read them as taken down by the stenog- 
rapher, when he was again called to order by Doolittle of Wis- 
consin. The presiding officer again sustained Sumner, when 
the decision was appealed from and, after some confusion and 
other motions, one to lay the appeal on the table carried and 
Sumner proceeded. 

He declared that the President had usurped the powers of 
Congress, to kindle anew the fires of rebellion, by setting up 
illegal governments in the South and by usurping the power 
of removal from office without consulting the Senate, that he 
might make places for his partisans and silence others by his 
threats, that the brutal language he employed to declare his 
purpose showed the spirit in which he acted, that had Lincoln 
been spared, the necessity for such legislation as the Tenure of 
Office Bill would never have occurred. Sumner proposed to 
amend the bill so that it would reach officers of smaller salaries 
than those included in it. But other Senators objected that 
this would impose too much labor and require too much time 
of the Senate. Sumner declared that merely because the vic- 
tims were so numerous was no reason why the sacrifice slioiild 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 565 

be allowed to proceed, that they had not hesitated dviring the 
war to act on the nomination of military and naval officers, 
though they were counted by thousands. He said he was willing 
to act on an inspector or night watchman, if he could thereby 
protect such humble officials from Executive tyranny, that they 
were sent to the Senate for work and that they sliould sur- 
round the citizen with all possible safeguards. 

Sumner's amendment failed ; but the bill passed both the 
Senate and the House. It was vetoed by the President and 
was then passed over his veto and thus became a law. It is curi- 
ous to note that the bill, as originally introduced, excepted 
Cabinet officers from its operation. It was thought that by 
reason of their confidential relation to the President his choice 
of them should be uncontrolled. It was made applicable to 
them by an amendment. It was under this amendment that 
the chief article of impeachment of President Johnson, was 
subsequently framed. He was charged with wilfully violating 
the Tenure of Office Law in removing Secretary Stanton from 
the Cabinet, after the Senate had once refused to concur in his 
removal. But the law was upon the whole a source of trouble to 
its authors. It tied Johnson's hands. But two years later when 
Grant had become Pre=ident tlie purpose of its passage was con- 
fessed, when many of its advocates voted for a modification of 
it which amounted to its repeal. It fell to Grant as they 
thought, to cleanse the Augean stables of the men Johnson had 
placed in office before the law was passed. He declined to un- 
dertake this, until the law was amended. 

Sumner, however, was opposed to the change, brought about, 
as he insisted, at the instance of President Grant, to make a way 
for the very abuse that the law had been enacted to correct. A 
bill for its repeal was passed by the House five days after Grant 
became President, without a reference to a committee. But the 
Senate was not so pliant. It was there referred to a com- 
mittee. A substitute was reported and discussed. The sub- 
stitute was referred again and amended and, after further dis- 
cussion, it was passed. Sumner was asked by a member of 
President Grant's Cabinet to withdraw his opposition to its 
repeal, urging that the President felt strongly upon'it. But he 
declined. He thought it a beneficent statute and should be 
I maintained. He was more consistent than those Republicans 
who voted to pass it to tie Johnson's hands, because they were 
not in harmony with him and voted to change it, so that it 
' might not tie Grant's hands, because they were in harmony 
I with him. To them, at least, its passage and virtual repeal 
j were not creditable. If it was a bad law, it should not have been 



566 J^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

passed. If it was a good law it should have been continued. 
They clearly should not have tied the hands of one President 
from making appointiricnts, because he was a Democrat and 
loosened the hands of another President so that he could make 
them, without stint, because he was a Republican. 

One of the alleged reasons for passing the bill was that it 
would aid the work of reconstruction. But this was little more 
than a pretext. The officeholders Avhose places were in question, 
could have little to do with reconstruction. They were mostly 
clerks in the Departments and others whose duties were purely 
ministerial. 

At this session of Congress the most important Reconstruc- 
tion Law was passed. Hostility to the President had become 
pronounced. Little heed was now paid by Congress to his 
wishes. He had attempted to take the whole subject of re- 
construction into his own hands. As a result, Congress saw the 
consequent defiant action of the Southern people in rejecting 
the Fourteenth Amendment, and in the riot at New Orleans 
caused by their determination to break up a meeting called to 
ask of the Convention then drafting the new constitution, to 
consider the question of negro suffrage ; when forty defenceless 
people were shot dead and one hundred and sixty more were 
wounded. The facts were now being brought out into clear 
light under a Congressional investigation. Congress saw sim- 
ilar outbreaks in other Southern States. It saw the systematic 
terrorization of Union men there, who were leaving their homes 
on account of it. It was estimated that more than a thousand 
defenceless negroes and many whites had been killed and no 
attempt made to punish the murderers. Congress felt the situa- 
tion could be neglected no longer. Reconstruction thus became 
the chief work of the session. 

After much debate the House passed a bill dividing the ten 
States that had been in rebellion into five military districts, 
the Commander of the Army to take charge of them through 
five officers, not below the rank of Brigadier-General. They 
were to have supervision of the peace in their precincts, with the 
power to use the civil tribunals already established, if deemed 
competent, otherwise to employ courts martial in their stead. 
Prompt trials were to be guaranteed, but no sentence was to 
be executed, until approved by the commanding officer of the 
district. In this form the bill passed the House and reached 
the Senate on February thirteenth, 1867. It will be noticed 
that it was purely a military bill, designed for protection 
alone. It contained no provisions for suffrage, or for the 
exclusion of those who had taken part in rebellion from acting 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 567 

in the government. The House also passed about the same time 
a bill for the reconstruction of Louisiana, drafted on lines sug- 
gested by Sumner at the previous session. 

The lateness of date counselled promptness of action; for 
the session would close on March fourth and the delay for the 
President's veto must also be allowed. The Senate at once en- 
tered upon their consideration and continued for three days 
and until three a. m. of the fourth. Sumner expressed him- 
self willing to vote for both as presented, if it was thought best 
to hasten their passage. The one he thought embodied a com- 
plete system of protection and the other a complete plan of 
reconstruction. But the discussion revealed great differences 
of opinion upon them among Senators. Some were content 
with the military, wishing to secure simple protection to the 
loyal people in the South ; others wished measures of recon- 
struction added. Upon reconstruction too there were differ- 
ences. Some were content with equal suffrage for the freed- 
men ; others wished those who had been in rebellion excluded 
from voting. With the hope of bringing some order out of 
this chaos and securing prompt action, a caucus of Republicans 
was called for the forenoon of February sixteenth. 

At this caucus a committee of seven was appointed to which 
all the pending propositions were to be referred. The members 
of this committee were Sherman, Fessenden, Howard, Harris, 
Frelinghuysen, Trumbull and Sumner. Sumner moved in 
the Committee that the existing governments be declared in- 
valid in the proposed bill. This carried. He also moved that 
the States in question bo designated simply, " rebel states." 
This also carried. But when he moved that in the constitutions 
to be drafted by the " rebel states " preparatory to reconstruc- 
tion, there shall be no exclusion from suffrage on account of 
color, this was voted down, only one other member of the com- 
mittee, Howard, sustaining him. Sherman, the Chairman of 
the committee was strongly against it. Sumner's motion to 
exclude those who had been in rebellion from suffrage, also 
failed, as did also an effort to substitute the Louisiana bill that 
|had been passed by the House, making it apply to all the in- 
isurrectionary States. These efforts failing, Sumner then gave 
'notice to the committee that he would appeal to the caucus, 
(considering the bill in the form drafted by the committee highly 
'objectionable. 

When the committee reported their bill to the caucus, he 
'stated his objections and moved an amendment to it, in en- 
larged form, to the effect that each State in its new constitution 
should incorporate a provision that all citizens without regard 



568 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to color, with a proper residence, should be voters. He argued 
that now was the time to settle this question and supersede its 
discussion in the Southern States, where repetitions of the New 
Orleans riots could be expected to attend it. He thought its 
discussion would cause disturbances in every State and village 
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. It was near the noon 
hour and members were anxious to vote. The vote was taken by, 
ayes and noes, the members standing to be counted. There 
were two counts and it carried, seventeen ayes to fifteen noes. 

Thus in this small meeting and in this summary way the 
fate of the great question of equal suffrage for the freedmen 
was determined. For Sumner it had been a labor of years fol- 
lowed persistently on the platform, at the hustings, in the 
Senate, by letter and by personal entreaty. Commencing with 
three or four votes in the Senate, bv constant agitation it had 
grown until it now triumphed, by being made, in caucus, the 
policy of the dominant party, to which the Republican votes 
were pledged. It was an occasion of great satisfaction to Sum- 
ner and to those who had stood faithfully by him. Clearer 
than his associates he had foreseen the coming issue and had 
pressed it to a solution. Some complain that it is not settled 
yet. But it has given the South almost half a century of com- 
parative peace and, with farther education for the black race, 
promises still greater results for the future. 

In the form the bill was approved, Sumner confessed it was 
not all he desired. He would have provided provisional Civil 
governments for these States to shape them into their new 
political life and superintend the transition. He would also 
have provided a means for the freedmen to secure an education 
and homestead. But these things he could not secure. Even 
in triumph he was constrained to confess that : " It is in pol- 
itics as in life, — we rarely obtain precisely what we desire." 

During the evening session of that day, Sherman, chairman 
of the caucus committee, moved the bill as amended by the 
caucus as a substitute for the House Bill. It was Saturday, 
February sixteenth. The debate was protracted late into the 
night. At midnight Sumner, assured that without further 
amendment it would receive the Republican vote, left the Cham- 
ber for his home. It had been an eventful day to him. At 
six o'clock Sunday morning the vote was taken and the bill 
passed by a party vote, twenty-nine to ten. The friends of 
the measure saw the magnitude of the measure and there was 
corresponding exultation among them. Sumner said Wilson 
wished to dance with somebody. 

When the bill reached the House it was at first rejected. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 569 

Only thirteen days of the session remained and it was feared 
the measure would fail for lack of time. A veto of the Presi- 
dent was assured and he was also permitted by the Constitution 
to hold it ten days, exclusive of Sundays, for consideration. 
The House Republicans finally agreed to pass it with an Amend- 
ment excluding ex-rebels, disqualified by the Fourteenth 
Amendment from holding office, from the right to vote for, or 
be members of the constitutional conventions and from holding 
any office under the provisional governments. Thus amended, 
both the Senate and the House passed the bill. 

During the consideration of the bill upon the House amend- 
ment there was a passage in the Senate between Sumner and 
Sherman. The latter thought Sumner was asking too much, 
that he was hard to please, that having secured all he asked, 
equal suffrage, in the Senate substitute, he was now seeking 
more, the exclusion of ex-rebels from power, and education and 
homesteads for the freedmen. Sumner reminded him that he 
had often before asked them ; and referred to his speeches of 
years previous to prove it. He reminded Sherman that he had 
been the laggard and how tardily he had advanced to Sumner's 
position on equal suffrage and the exclusion of Confederates. 
He also gave Sherman notice that he expected to continue to 
advance and him to continue to follow. It was a form of 
speech that Sumner occasionally indulged in towards antago- 
nists. His colleagues did not relish his " lecturing " and it 
often caused feelings of resentment towards him. 

There were good grounds for Sumner's claims in his own 
behalf; for he was the aggressive reformer of the Senate. Dem- 
ocrats too liked occasionally to twit Sumner's Eepublican col- 
leagues about it. A few days later, during another debate on 
reconstruction, Buckalew of Pennsylvania said: "The 
propositions which the Senator from Massachusetts makes one 
year, and which are criticised by his colleagues as extreme, 
inappropriate and untimely, are precisely the propositions 
which those colleagues support with greater zeal and vehe- 
mence, if possible, than he, the year following. In short. Sir, we 
can foresee at one session of Congress the character of the 
1 propositions and of the arguments, with which we are to be 
' favored at the next, in this Chamber, by looking to the pioneer 
j man, who goes forward in advance, his banner thrown out, his 
cause announced, the means by which it shall be carried on and 
the objects in view proclaimed with force and frankness. 
[ When the Reconstruction Bill reached the President he re- 
tained it the ten days and on March second, returned it with his 
veto. It was understood he held it for the Constitutional time 



570 L/FS OF CHARLES SUMNER 

SO as to permit it to be defeated by dilatory tactics in Congress. 
But this was prevented by a motion and it passed both Houses 
over his veto by a strict party vote, on the same day it was re- 
turned by the President. Thus was enacted the famous Recon- 
struction Law, giving to the freedmen, the right to vote. 

It is an interesting reflection, that it probably would not have 
been enacted, but for the perversity of the Southern States, just 
as slavery would not have been wiped out where it already 
existed, had the Nation not been driven to it by the conduct of 
the South. Both stand out as examj^les of how an overruling 
Providence sometimes makes the wrath of man to praise Him. 
It was the feeling of many Northern statesmen that if the 
insurrectionary states voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, they should be restored to their privileges of state- 
hood. Such a resolution was placed in the Republican platform 
of the State of New York. It was believed that the South, 
being deprived of the increased representation their slaves had 
given them so that, not being permitted to vote, this Amend- 
ment would forbid them being counted as a basis of representa- 
tion, she would grant the suffrage to her colored people. But 
the South rejected the Fourteenth Amendment. She had Pres- 
ident Johnson on her side. She thought that with the patron- 
age at his disposal, he could compel the North to allow her in- 
creased representation to remain. The North was driven to 
another way of dealing with the question and she passed this 
law for equal suffrage. Two of Sumner's great purposes in 
public life had now been accomplished. By the Thirteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution slavery w^as abolished; and now 
the right of the freedmen to vote was secured. This right was 
soon to be sealed by the Fifteenth Amendment. 

One of the last measures passed by this Congress was a law 
requiring the next Congress to meet immediately on the expira- 
tion of the present. The distrust of the President had become 
so great that it was not deemed wise to leave matters in his 
hands for the next nine months without retaining some means 
of controlling him. It was feared that he would attempt to 
place some such construction upon the Reconstruction Law as 
would defeat its intended operation. The new Congress there- 
fore met promptly on March fourth. 

Its first work was to pass a supplementary Reconstruction 
Law, prescribing in detail a method of registering voters and 
summoning conventions to frame constitutions in the insur- 
rectionary States, preparatory to readmission to representation. 
This bill was passed and vetoed and passed again over the j 
President's veto, by a vote of forty ayes to seven noes in the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 5 71 

Senate and one hundred and fourteen ayes to twenty-five noes 
in the House. The vote showed tlie opposition that the last 
election had developed to tlie President. This Congress ad- 
journed on the thirtieth day of March, hut with the same want 
of confidence in the President its predecessor had shown, its 
adjournment was only until July third. The Senate was, how- 
ever, convened in executive session on April first, by proclama- 
tion of the President. During this adjournment of Congress 
the expected happened. By an adroit construction placed upon 
the Reconstruction Law, by the Attorney-General, in an opinion 
furnished the President, it was seen that its operation would be 
hampered. As soon as Congress reconvened on July third, it 
passed another supplementary law to obviate the construction 
placed upon the original act. This was vetoed as usual by the 
President and as usual passed over his veto, by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. 

When both of these supplementary acts were before the Sen- 
ate, Sumner offered amendments to them, requiring the con- 
stitutions of each of the States to contain a provision requiring 
the legislature to establish and maintain a system of public 
schools open to all without distinction of race or color. He 
would also have required free schools as a condition of recon- 
struction. Some Senators said, " Wait till the constitutions 
formed are presented to Congress," but he said, " No, that 
would not be fair." He wished to be plain and explicit. They 
had the power and they should seize the present moment to ex- 
ercise it. Some would act upon the principle of doing as little 
as possible, but he would do as much as possible that would 
redound to the good of all and to the National fame. Electors 
by the hundred thousand would soon exercise the franchise for 
tlie first time, and witliout preparation for it and they should 
be educated promptly. Without education all this other benefi- 
cent legislation might be a failure and the gift bestowed be 
jperilous. He asked that education accompany and sustain 
suffrage. 

" I plead now," he said, " for education. Nothing is more 
peautiful or more precious. Education decorates the life, while 
jit increases all our powers. It is the charm of society, the 
i'iolace of solitude, and the multiple of every faculty. It adds 
..ncalculably to the capacity of the individual and to the re- 
sources of the community. Careful inquiry establishes what 
■eason declares, that labor is productive in proportion to its 
Mlucation. There is no art it does not advance. There is no 

'orm of enterprise it does not encourage and quicken. It brings 

ietory and is itself the greatest of victories." 



573 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

He argued that had these states been more enlightened they 
never would have rebelled, that statistics showed that in the 
slave States there were half a million white people over twenty 
years of age, who could not read or write while in the free 
States with double the native white population there were only 
half as many. Here was the source of the Rebellion ; a popula- 
tion, that could neither read nor w^ite, naturally did not either 
comprehend or appreciate good government. In Massachusetts 
free schools had been founded and maintained according to the 
words of her statute, " that learning may not be buried in the 
graves of our fathers," in Virginia her Governor had publicly 
thanked God that there were no free schools nor printing there, 
and the hope was expressed that they would not have them these 
hundred years. The example of each had spread. In Massa- 
chusetts one in four hundred and forty-six of the adult native 
white population could not read or write ; in Virginia one in 
five ; in Connecticut one in two hundred and fifty-six ; in South 
Carolina one in eight ; in ISTew Hampshire one in one hundred 
and ninety-two ; in North Carolina one in three. Hence he 
traced the Rebellion. He asked them to be taught by this ex- 
perience and demand now a new safeguard for the future. As 
the soldier would disappear let his place be supplied by the 
schoolmaster. 

But the proposition met with opposition. Other Senators 
more easily exhausted than he and feeling less interest in the 
subject, were growing tired of reconstruction. They wished to 
be done with it. Again they insisted he was too late and 
asked why he had not called attention to it earlier. But he 
answered he had done so, long before, as early as 1865, and had 
continued to do so ever since, in season and out of season. The 
fact was, in the larger interest and greater zeal with which he 
had pressed for equal suffrage, the subject of education had 
been overlooked by them. Frelinghuysen insisted, that to 
undertake to add new conditions to the reconstruction measure, 
the last Congress had passed, would be bad faith ; that such 
was not the way to do business; the nation should keep its 
faith, Sumner answered that the law was not yet old enough 
to have invited action upon it so as to prejudice any one. Pat- 
terson of Xew Hampshire asked if he thought it possible to 
establish a system of common schools in the South correspond- 
ing to those of New England without first confiscating the 
large estates and dividing them up into small homesteads so 
that there might be small landholders, able and willing to sup- 
port them by taxation. When the vote was taken on Sumner's 
amendment it was a tie and so the amendment was lost. When 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 573 

Simmer moved the same amendment to the Reconstruction Bill 
of July, it was voted out of order under the rule limiting the 
business of the session. 

It was with much regret that Sumner saw this new failure 
of his effort for education. The freedmen were coming to their 
new right, eager for improvement and, as he well knew, needing 
it badly, to qualify them for citizenship. A provision of some 
kind should have been attempted to afford this much needed 
improvement. The regret continued and time has justified 
him. It has been a subject of much earnest thought, how to 
educate and elevate the colored people of the South. George 
Peabody, a philanthropic citizen of Massachusetts, had recently 
given two million dollars for the promotion of education there 
and in the destitute portion of the South-West, and Sumner at 
this session moved and had passed a resolution of tlianks and 
a gold medal to be given him in the name of the people of the 
United States as a recognition of his beneficence. In a still 
wider spirit Sumner had spoken in favor of a medal to Cyrus 
W. Field for his work in the construction of the Atlantic 
cable. He had carried a reduction of the tariff on books and 
charts and educational and philosophical apparatus. All these, 
this Congress had voted. He also advocated, though unsuc- 
cessfully, a department or bureau of education. Though edu- 
cation for the colored people of the South also failed, yet after 
all is it not in the hands of the colored people themselves that 
this question has found its best solution? Around their own 
churches and Sabbath-schools have grown up literary societies 
for secular culture and in the hands of their ministers and 
teachers, such men as Booker Washington, the best progress has 
been made. Their own desire for improvement has been the 
best sign. 

Sumner was not the man to be tamely bound, by an iron rule, 
that prevented legislative action upon measures that he deemed 
important. Though sometimes he yielded to such a rule, it was 
only after a stern struggle against it. There were three 
special sessions of this Congress before the opening of its first 
regular session in December, one commencing March fourth, 
another commencing July third and still another commencing 
November twenty-first. Sumner was one of the earnest ad- 
vocates of these special sessions. He opposed each adjourn- 
ment, but the last, which was immediately before the com- 
mencement of the regular session. His argument was that the 
President was a constant disturber and a mischief-maker, and 
so long as his administration continued it was the duty of Con- 
gress to be on guard and perpetual watch, against him. He 



574 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

felt that they should continue in session during the summer so 
as to be at hand for any emergency that might arise. The head 
of one of the Departments had assumed to appoint to office 
persons in the South, who had taken part in the Rebellion and 
whose disability to hold office had never been removed. If Con- 
gress were adjourned these appointees would hold over until 
the regular session in December. Tlien would come up a ques- 
tion as to their pay for services rendered during the recess. If 
the Senate were in session it could refuse to confirm the ap- 
pointments and thus that vexatious question could be avoided. 
But others were more eager to escape the heats of Washington 
and less devoted to their work. The most he could accomplish 
was the sessions held. This much was accomplished only after 
overcoming considerable opposition. 

But when they met, there was a further difficulty. At the 
opening of the July session a caucus of the Eepublican Sena- 
tors was held at which a resolution was passed to confine tlie 
business of the session to removing obstructions to the Recon- 
struction Laws and giving them tJie scope intended. Sumner 
had attended this caucus and taken part in its proceedings and 
liad voted against this resolution. He had gone to the caucus, 
without knowing what was to be considered, and after the vote 
was taken on the resolution he arose in the caucus and said he 
would not be bound by it. Fessenden answered, Then you 
should not have voted, if you did not intend to be bound by the 
decision of the majority. Sumner replied that he was a 
Senator. He insisted that he was under an obligation to dis- 
charge his duties as a Senator and that they could not tie his 
hands from the discharge of that duty by invoking a rule of a 
caucus. He argued that it was his duty to resist the offensive 
resolution to the last in the caucus, ancl if beaten tliere, renew 
the fight against it in the Senate. He was tlierefore offering 
other business when he was interrupted by Fessenden who in- 
sisted on the limit agreed on in the caucus. An altercation be- 
tween them ensued in which some bitter expressions were used 
by Fessenden. But the rule of the caucus was adhered to and 
by resolution was made the rule of the Senate. 

According to the rules governing parties in caucus, as we 
have come to recognize them, this disposition of the matter was 
correct. A caucus could be of little use, if, after its action, 
parties were still free to follow their own bent, untrammelled 
by what had been agreed to in it. It was asked of Sumner in 
tiiis altercation if he had not received the benefit of the same 
rule when the caucus had voted to require equal suffrage for all, 
in the future constitutions of the Confederate States. Sumner 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 575 

admitted he had. What if the minority had then refused to be 
bound by the vote of the caucus? was quickly asked. But 
Sumner insisted the cases were different, that to repudiate a 
proposition for liberty was very dilferent from repudiating one 
against it. Fessenden bluntly retorted that there was no dif- 
ference at all, that when one promised to do a thing, with a full 
understanding, he had no right to do otherwise, whether it be 
one way or the other. He assumed that when a man took part 
in the proceedings of a caucus he impliedly promised to be 
bound by its action. This Sumner denied. He regarded a 
caucus vote as the recorded result of the deliberations of politi- 
cal associates, so far as practicable, a guide for their action, 
but not a constraint embodied in a perpetual record. 

Another measure of far-reaching importance belongs to this 
period of Sumner's life. I have postponed the mention of it so 
that the work of the two Houses of Congress might be con- 
cluded without a break, before entering upon it. I refer to the 
purchase of what is now the Territory of Alaska from Russia. 
This negotiation had been secretly conducted by Secretary 
Seward during the winter and spring of 18G7 and the treaty 
was signed by him and the Russian Minister on March thir- 
tieth. Late the evening before, Sumner, on reaching home, 
found a note waiting for him, from the Secretary asking if he 
could come to his house, saying that he had a matter of public 
business about which he wished to confer with him at once. 
Sumner went to the Secretary's house, but found he had already 
gone to the Department. His son, the Assistant Secretary, how- 
ever, was there and the Russian Minister soon came in and for 
the first time Sumner learned that a treaty was in progress for 
the cession of Russian America. The minister took a map and 
pointed out the boundary and explained the terms of the pro- 
posed treaty. Sumner expressed no opinion upon it, but went 
over the whole matter carefully. They separated at midnight, 
the Minister going to the State Department, whore the treaty 
was being copied and he added, as he bade Sumner good-night, 
an entreaty that he would not fail them, knowing how im- 
portant it was to have with them the Chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Foreign Relations of the Senate. The treaty could not 
be made without tlie advice and consent of the Senate and it 
was the report of this Committee which would largely deter- 
mine the action of the Senate. 

The treaty was signed at four o'clock on the morning of 
March thirtieth, which was the last day of this session of Con- 
gress. An adjournment was then to take place to July third. 
The day it was signed the treaty was sent to the Senate for its 



576 J^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

consideration and was at once referred to Sumner's Committee. 

The President convened the Senate in Executive session the 
next day. The members of the Committee were Sumner, Fes- 
senden, of Maine, Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Harlan, of Iowa, 
Pattersori, of New Hampshire, and Johnson, of Maryland. On 
April eighth the Committee reported it to the Senate with a 
recommendation that it advise and consent to the treaty; and 
the Senate then proceeded to its consideration. Sumner spoke 
at length the next day on the subject. As it was in Executive 
session, the proceedings were secret and no reporters were 
present. The ban of secrecy, however, was afterwards removed, 
and having been requested to reduce his speech to writing so it 
could be published as a means of furnishing information on the 
subject to the public, Sumner consented and it was afterwards 
written out and published. Though he spoke from notes of 
less than a sheet of paper, for three hours, his speech as 
published occupies one hundred and sixty-five pages. He 
elaborated it in preparing it for publication. 

It began with a description of the Territory. As ceded it was 
estimated to contain 570,000 square miles and the price fixed 
was $7,200,000, in gold, or about $13.64 per square mile or 
twenty cents per acre. 

The country was at this time comparatively unknown and 
here lay one of the chief difficulties the treaty had to encounter. 
There had been no preparation for it, — no sentiment in its 
favor worked up ; and being foreign country and in a northern 
latitude, little opportunity had been offered for general in- 
formation about it. A trip to it was not then a delightful 
summer excursion over deep seas of bright and sparkling waters, 
studded with beautiful islands and hemmed with rock-bound 
coasts, among which palatial steamers threaded their way carry- 
ing annually thousands of tourists. The region was then hardly 
known beyond its savage inhabitants or the hardy fishermen or 
solitary trader and his voyageurs, who made their way thither 
to catch the fish that swarmed its waters in shoals, or to 
traffic in the rich peltries the country produced. In prepar- 
ing his speech, Sumner was obliged to glean his information 
from many sources. Books of travel of early voyagers, informa- 
tion furnished by the reports of trading fur companies as well 
as works in the Russian language which he was obliged to have 
translated for him. All were laid under contribution. 

After describing the extent of the proposed purchase and the 
title of Russia to the country, Sumner explained the early 
history of the treaty. The matter had been mooted as early as 
the administration of President Buchanan, when it was sug- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 577 

gested, to Russia, by Senator Gwin of California, professing to 
speak for the President unofficially, that she was too far away 
to make the most of the possessions and that we could derive 
more from them. There was also some unofficial talk about the 
price. In the succeeding excitement of the Presidential elec- 
tion and the Eebellion, the matter was lost sight of for the 
time. With returning peace, however, the people on the Pacific 
coast again pressed the matter. They wished new facilities 
to obtain fish, fur and ice. The Legislature of Washington 
Territory memorialized President Johnson on the subject and 
the matter was turned over to Secretary Seward. Senator 
Cole, of California, also pressed the matter. Some rights that 
Russia had granted to fur companies were about to expire and 
the companies were seeking an extension of them for twenty- 
five or thirty years. Their dealings had not been satisfactory, 
so that a crisis in the affairs of the company seemed at hand. 
In the meantime Russia had been making an investigation into 
the value of the possessions in consideration of an offer of 
$5,000,000, that had been suggested during Buchanan's ad- 
ministration. The Russian Minister had returned home on 
leave of absence, promising to promote the good relations be- 
tween the countries on the subject. He presented the matter 
to his Government and, as he was returning, he was instructed 
to offer the possessions to us. Upon reaching this country the 
matter was concluded by telegram, on March twenty-ninth, v^ 
At four o'clock the next morning the treaty was signed by 
Secretary Seward and the Russian ]\rinister. Baron Stoeckl, 
acting for their respective countries. 

In this simple manner the important transaction was brought 
about, without protocol or dispatch or other writing till the 
final conclusion of it, if we except two short notes, in length, 
as printed, not so much as a single page, and they only con- 
veyed the expression on our part that the cession must be, 
without any reservation of privilege or franchise of any com- 
pany, and offered the $200,000 additional if this be granted; 
and it was. The occasion of these two notes was one monopoly 
enjoyed by a fur company and another by an ice company, 
Avhich we wished extinguished. The treaty was to be ratified 
within three months and the money to be paid within ten. 

In considering the treaty generally, Sumner argued that it 
i would be a great advantage to the Pacific Coast States inasmuch 
as they were already procuring supplies of ice there and also 
wished to supplant European countries in its fisheries and its 
trade in furs. Its coast abounded in numerous fine har- 
bors, whereas that of the United States then had only San Fran- 



578 J^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

cisco of any considerable value from Panama to Pnget Soimd. 
This was an important consideration, not only as furnishing an 
outlet for our own trade but as reaching out for that of China 
and Japan. Its acquisition would satisfy our Anglo-Saxon 
"■ greed for land," furnishing increased size of our territory 
and increased consciousness of strength. But more than this, 
it would furnish an extension of Republican institutions and 
enable us to dismiss another European monarchy from our con- 
tinent, which was destined, he believed, to become the un- 
divided home of the American people. 

The acquisition of the strip, he argued, would anticipate a 
desire of Great Britain to possess it because the value of her 
interior would be depreciated without it. She had not been 
friendly to us during our late war, while Eussia had been our 
constant friend. " The Eebellion which tempted so many 
other powers into its embrace could not draw Eussia from her 
habitual good will." Simultaneously with the talk in England 
and France of recognition of the Confederacy, had been the 
appearance of a Eussian fleet in New York harbor and another 
in that of San Francisco ; and then the talk ceased. It was 
argued that Eussia, standing alone against the other powers of 
Europe, was only wishing to create another rival to them on 
this side of the Atlantic. The same wish may have prompted 
lier to cede this territory to us that it might not fall into the 
hands of Great Britain. It was at all events hoped that our 
acceptance of the offer might show our appreciation of Eussian 
friendship and cement the feeling of amity. 

One thing Sumner did not like and, while he favored the 
ratification, he fi.led his caveat against it. This treaty must 
not be made a precedent for indiscriminate and costly an- 
nexations. He believed we were predestined to occupy the con- 
tinent, but our growth should be by natural process, Mn'thout 
Avar and without extensive purchase. Our motto should be that 
of Goethe, '^Without haste, without rest." Our growth should 
l)e by the attraction of Eepublican institutions, rather than by 
blood or money. 

But the most elaborate and most valuable part of Sumner's 
speech was his timely and elaborate discussion of the character 
and value of the territory. All talk of purchase must have 
been idle, if the people and Congress could not be persuaded of 
the value of the possession. The opponents of the purchase 
called it " rock and ice " and attempted to ridicule the project 
of buying what they said Eussia herself had come to regard 
as worthless. Sumner showed how false such talk was. 

Without a knowledge of climatic laws, the weather there, he 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 579 

declared, would seem like a freak of nature. The winters were 
nuich less severe than in corresponding latitudes on the 
Atlantic. One traveller had spent seven winters there between 
latitudes fifty-one and fifty-seven degrees and lying so near the 
sliore as to have the cable tied to the trees and yet only once was 
the ice around his ship sufficient to bear the weight of a man. 
Pines grew six feet in diameter and one hundred and forty 
feet high, while in the corresponding latitude on the Atlantic 
the same species were scarcely sufficient " for studding sail 
booms.'' This was owing to the thermal currents, correspond- 
ing to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, which starting under 
the Equator near the Philippines, sweep northward, passing 
Japan and separating, one branch going to Bering Strait, 
the other bending eastward along the Aleutian Islands and 
thence south along the coast of Sitka, Oregon and California. 
They were like pipes of hot water carrying the heat from warm 
boilers to cool apartments above. Every ocean wind traversing 
these streams of heat took up the warmth and carried it to the 
coast. These currents of air and water were aided by the con- 
figuration of the coast, nearly paralleled by lofty and im- 
penetrable chains of mountains confining the warm air from 
tlie ocean and warding off the cold from the Arctic regions. 
So that the mean annual tempe^-ature of Sitka is about the 
same as that of Montreal though it is ten degrees farther 
north. Its temperature in winter is about the same as that of 
Washington, D. C, while its summers are twenty degrees cooler. 
Thus summers are cooler and winters warmer than in corre- 
sponding latitudes on the Atlantic coast. 

Sumner explained that the natural results expected to follow 
these climatic conditions appeared in the products of the 
country. On every side in the southern parts were impenetrable 
forests reaching from the coast to the mountain tops. The trees 
were superb pines fit for masts for the largest ships. When 
the timber disappeared there was long grass, berries, such as 
raspberries, elderberries, cranberries and whortleberries, and 
currants. Many of our garden fruits flourished, radishes, cab- 
bage, cauliflower, peas and carrots. In the world's present 
enormous and wasteful consumption of wood, its forests prom- 
ised to be, in the future, of incalculable value. In minerals, 
the country revealed gold, silver, copper, lead and coal. 

One of the great products of the country was its furs. It 
abounded in sea-otters, seals, foxes, the reindeer, the beaver 
and the bear in great numbers. In one year 800,000 skins of 
the ursine seals were accumulated at the factory at Oonalaska. 
The value of the peltries was shown when it was remembered 



580 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

that sea otters, at Sitka, were worth fifty dollars, black fox, 
fifty dollars, silver fox, forty dollars. These exquisite furs had 
been purchased by greedy traders from the ignorant natives for 
a trifle. One early writer described the scene, " Such as were 
dressed in furs instantly stripped themselves and in return for 
a moderate quantity of spike-nails we received sixty-five sea- 
otter skins." As a consequence of such dealing the poor natives 
soon appeared in worthless hides while their rich conquerors 
appropriated the beautiful furs they once wore. The greed for 
the exquisite coat of the sea-otter became so great that the 
animal was nearly exterminated. 

Sumner described the fisheries as of equal if not greater im- 
portance than the furs. Fish in groat abundance were every- 
where taken on the shore, around islands and in every creek 
and inlet. There were oysters, clams, crabs; and a dainty little 
fish of the herring tribe called the oolachan, contributed to the 
luxury of the tal)le, so rich in its oily nature that the natives 
were said to sometimes use it as a candle." Besides these which 
he mentioned only to put aside, were the " great staples of 
commerce and mainstays of daily subsistence, the salmon, the 
herring, the halibut, the cod and behind all the whale." Down 
to the discovery of the country, the natives lived on fish, fresh 
in summer and dried in winter. They were in great plenty. 
In three hours' time Captain Cook's men caught a hundred 
halibuts, some of a hundred pounds and none less than twenty 
pounds. This was near Kadiak. The writings of the early 
voyagers, which Sumner quoted in great numbers, abound in 
similar experiences. But, he argued, in order that there may 
be profitable fisheries, there must be the existence of banks and 
a proper climate as well as a market. Fish are not caught in 
the deep waters of the ocean. The shores here show an im- 
mense extent of banks suitable for fisheries, " seeming like an 
immense unbroken sea meadow adjoining the land and con- 
stituting plainly the largest extent of soundings in length and 
breadth in the known world," larger than those of Xewfound- 
land and Great Britain together. These facts as to the extent 
of these fisheries were proven by the actual survey of the 
coast but better still by the actual experience of the fishermen 
themselves. The climate, too, was favorable for the taking and 
the preservation of tlie fish. It is not so cold as to interfere 
with the catch nor yet so warm as to prevent tliem being pre- 
served ; and although near Sitka the constant rains prevent 
their being dried in the sun, they can be easily taken to curing 
stations, as is done on the Atlantic coast. An abundant market 
was furnished in Washington, California and Oregon and our 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 581 

country eastward. Sumner traced the rise and development of 
the fisheries on the Atlantic coast and predicted that those, now 
purchased, would yet rival our immense interests in the business 
on our eastern shores. 

In conclusion Sumner suggested that a new name must be 
furnished our new possessions. They had been heretofore 
known as " Russian America " or " Russian Possessions in 
America." Such names after the country had ceased to be- 
long to Russia would be obviously improper. He therefore, in 
looking for a more appropriate name, was attracted by the 
designation of the promontory stretchinsf towards the Aleutian 
Islands which had been called by Captain Cook, " Alaska." It 
was the name applied by the natives to the American con- 
tinent, meaning " great land." Sumner suggested the name 
for the whole possession. Mr. Hilgard, of the coast survey, 
prepared a new map of the country. It was to appear for the 
first time with the pamphlet edition of Sumner's speech. In 
a letter to Sumner, he wrote : " As this edition will make its 
first appearance appended to your speech, I have ventured 
to put on it the name Alaska, proposed by you, as I have 
no doubt it will be generally adopted." It has been universally 
adopted and has ever since been the name of our Arctic pos- 
sessions. 

I have thus given a somewhat extended outline of Sumner's 
speech to enable the reader to see something of its real character 
and the labor he gave to it. It was a marvel of research, hap- 
pily arranged and clearly expressed. Until it was published, 
we had no compendious treatment of the subject. Though he 
was obliged to grope in all sorts of out-of-the-way places for 
information, the work was conscientiously done. It affords to- 
iday one of the best and most useful treatises, on the re- 
I sources of the country ; and has been much read and relied 
I upon, for ready information on the subject. When the question 
jof the purchase was before the country there was an earnest in- 
iquiry for such information. Congress had not yet voted the 
Imoney to pay for it, the country was badly in debt and bur- 
idened with pensions and other large expenditures, our inheri- 
:tance from the war. There was rife talk of repudiation. The 
people must be persuaded that the proposition of purchase had 
!merit, before Congressmen could be expected to vote an in- 
crease of the National debt for this purpose. Sumner's speech 
did very much to turn the tide in its favor. It showed by an 
;authority, that men had come to regard with confidence, that 
[the property was more than worth the price, and that it would 
ibe folly for our nation to allow the opportunity, to possess it. 



582 J-'JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to escape. That Sumner should advocate it when proposed by 
President Johnson and his Secretary, between whom on gen- 
eral questions, there was so much disagreement, showed his 
statesmanship. With him, in public matters, the advocate was 
nothing, the merit of the proposition, everything. 

Fessenden moved in the Senate to postpone the further 
consideration of the treaty, but his motion was voted down. 
The ratification of it was voted by the Senate, the same day 
that Sumner spoke, by a vote of thirty-seven to two, Fessenden 
and Morrill of Vermont voting against it. The money to pay 
for it was not voted by the House until July, 1S68, more than 
a year later and then only after an acrimonious debate. Some 
feeling was shown towards tlie President and his Secretary for 
having proceeded so far with the negotiation in secret, without 
reserving any judgment for the other Departments of the Gov- 
ernment. The Secretary felt the importance of the treaty so 
fully that he hardly intended to leave it where Congress could 
defeat it without grea"; embarrassment. This did contribute to 
its successful termination. But it was the powerful influence of 
Sumner, that gave direction to public sentiment, on the subject, 
and insured its success. His speech was published in full, not- 
withstanding its great length, in the Boston Journal, extracts 
from it were published in other dailies, a Eussian translation 
of it with an introduction was published in St. Petersburg; 
and it was widely read and commented on in influential quar- 
ters. The Secretary of State subscribed for copies of the pam- 
phlet edition of it, printed in this country, out of funds of the 
State Department, and distributed them to Members of Con- 
gress and the public. 

Sumner's caveat against indiscriminate acquisitions of ter- 
ritory, contained in the speech, proved to be well-timed. Se- 
ward had a strong tendency towards territorial aggrandizement. 
He seriously contemplated the purchase of the island of St. 
Thomas, one of the West Indies, belonging to Denmark, for 
$7,500,000. Denmark sent a si^ecial agent. General Raasloff, 
to this country to promote the negotiations. He remained in 
Washington some months and saw Sumner frequently on the 
subject, but Sumner would have nothing to do with it. The 
island is an unhealthy, storm-swept rock, frequented by hurri- 
canes and dotted by volcanoes, altogether of little value. The 
negotiation, though persisted in till Seward went out of office, 
was a dismal failure. He had also cast a longing eye towards 
Mexico and the Sandwich Islands. 

The acquisition of Alaska was a complete reversal of the 
policy of our government. Under the domination of slavery, we 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 583 

had made repeated acquisitions of territory to the South for the 
purpose of increasing its influence in the two Houses of Con- 
gress. Prior to its domination, in 1803, we had acquired the 
Louisiana Territory, partly North and partly South. But after 
this, all our acquisitions had been in the South until now, 
Florida in 1819, Texas in 1845, parts of New Mexico and Ari- 
zona, all of California, Utah and Nevada in 1848 and still other 
parts of New Mexico and x\rizona by the Gadsden Purchase in. 
1853. The purchase of Alaska therefore was a complete de- 
parture from the pro-slavery policy of the Government and 
turned the eyes of the Nation northward. Its acquisition, how- 
ever, was attended with some regrets at the blundering of the 
same period that had lost us British Columbia. It would 
have given us an unbroken Pacific coast-line from Lower Cali- 
fornia to the Arctic Ocean. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

THE PROPHETIC VOICES ON AMERICA LECTURE ON " THE NA- 
TION " — LEAVING THE OLD HOME IN BOSTON NEW HOME 

IN WASHINGTON^ — HABITS — VISITORS 

The preparation, for publication, of his speech on Alaska, oc- 
cupied Sumner's time between the adjournment of the Execu- 
tive session of the Senate in April and the Extra session of 
Cono^ress in July. After the close of this session Sumner went 
to Boston. But the time hung heavily on his hands. He was 
without a home and a companion. His mother's house where he 
had so long enjoyed the quiet of his vacation was closed, to be 
open to him no more. The two previous summers it had been 
occupied by him and his wife as their home, though part of each 
they were absent from it, — at Newport together, part of the 
first, and she, at Lenox, the second. But the sequel of their 
married life was a sad one. She was not happy and as he pre- 
dicted there could, therefore, be no happiness in the union for 
him. The first winter passed in the routine of Washington life 
and without incident, so far as the public knew. After the close 
of the session in Washington, they returned in June to their 
home in Boston. During the same month she went to Lenox, — 
and so they parted — never to meet again. The friends of both 
parties continued to hope, for some time, that a reconciliation 
would be had, but it never came. Some years later he procured 
a divorce. Those in position best able to know the facts 
acquitted him of any fault. Mr. Hooper, at whose house they 
had met, and who had stood towards her as a father, continued 
Sumner's friend to the end, was present with kind offices at his 
last sickness and death, and to him were addressed in friendly 
recognition his last words. 

The details of the separation, each side with equal good taste, 
withheld from the public. The real cause for the separation, 
however, lay in the disparity of their ages. It is seldom that 
a union is happy where such a disparity exists. He had become 
engrossed in public affairs. With an industry rarely equalled, 
he had given his undivided attention to the duties of his office ; 
what is known as society was given little of his time. It was 
too late to change the habits which had grown upon him with 
the years. They were now a nart of himself. Her life had 
584 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 585 

been east in an entirely different mould and she could not fall 
readily into the habits of one so many years her senior. The 
place of the wife of a man of his prominence with its hard 
round of social functions at Washington and Boston, would 
have been no easy place for one much older and who had grown 
into it with his growth. 

This brief statement covering a period of eight months, 
relates all the public ever knew of the story of Sumner's married 
life. But it was a relation that tinged the remainder of his 
days. The thought came sadly to him that he was never to 
know again the comforts of a home. As the years went by, the 
hard troublous days brought a struggle with Johnson and then 
another with Grant, with loss of friends, with sickness and age 
and there came too a feeling of loneliness, growing upon him 
to the end. On all sides there was respect and admiration, 
amounting almost to veneration, but when the time had come 
when he needed the affection and tenderness of a home, there 
was none. He stood like the last oak. If he found help, it 
must be at the hands of men and of strangers, often good 
enough and faithful enough too of its kind, but who that has 
spent much of his life in hotels and boarding-houses has 
not grown tired of the kind. Of womanly tenderness and sym- 
pathetic home confidence and companionship he found none. 
It seemed a poor lot ; and by the hard work and the good he had 
done he felt he deserved a better one. 

And so his married life ended. But their separation had 
not before come so sadly to him as now. During the sessions 
of Congress, crowded with work and much in the society of his 
fellow-Senators, his mind had been withdrawn from it. But 
with the work of the sessions done and the time of vacation at 
hand, away from Washington and its excitement, among the 
quieter days at Boston, it came heavily upon him. It was 
publicly known and talked about. He sought a respite from 
the thought of it, in his never-failing solace, books. Books are 
friends that never fail us. In the preparation of his speech on 
Alaska, his thoughts had been turned to the widening prospect 
of his country. The vision that it opened to him was a pleasant 
one and he found easy diversion in pursuing the subject. 

He turned his attention to the preparation of an article on 
" Prophetic Voices Concerning America," which was published 
in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1867. It afforded him 
a wide field for reading, groping among old, and almost for- 
gotten, authors, and in curious places, in literature. It was a 
kind of diversion he enjoyed and was like his study of en- 
gravings, that had solaced his thoughts, while in the hands of 



586 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

his physician and suffering from the assault by Brooks. The 
monograph was afterwards amplified, with a view to separate 
]Hiblication, at the approach of our Centennial Celebration, in 
1876. It now occupies one hundred and eighty pages of his 
works. 

It is a curious collection of prophecies, made at different 
times, by many men, concerning the future of America. It is 
arranged in heads, under the name of each of the authors 
quoted, and contains as introductory to the prophetic matter 
quoted, a brief biographical sketch of the author, whose predic- 
tion is given with comments on the prophecy, and an extended 
introduction and conclusion to the whole monograph by Sum- 
ner. In the opening sentence, he pronounces the discovery of 
America by Columbus, " the greatest event of secular history." 
In numerous places crops out the support of the prediction he 
had ventured, in his speech on Alaska, that some day Canada 
Avould be part of the United States and that the whole continent 
of North America was destined to become the home of one 
people. Turgot, the French philosopher and statesman, wrote 
in 1750, predicting our Revolution: "Colonies are like fruits, 
which hold to the tree only until their maturity; when suffi- 
cient for themselves they did that which Carthage afterwards 
did, — that which some day America will do." Sumner added, 
" At the time Turgot wrote, Canada was a French possession ; 
hut his words are as applicable to this colony as to the United 
States. When will the fruit be ripe?" He quoted John 
Adams, De Tocqueville and Cobden in support of his prophecy ; 
and criticised Jefferson and Daniel Webster for a narrow view 
of our destiny, they believing that an independent nation would 
some day occupy the shores of the Pacific where are now the 
States of California, Oregon and Washington. 

Sumner received numerous congratulations on this mono- 
graph. Men wondered that, with the many other demands on 
him, he could still find time for such work and they were still 
further surprised, when he undertook it, that he could do it so 
well. His industry and the resources of his mind seemed 
remarkable to his friends. Edmunds, remendDering the caustic 
characterization of himself by Sumner, in the interview in the 
Boston Advertiser humorously wrote him on reading the 
monograph, that he hoped he would not hasten the irresistible 
attraction prophecy but bring his " obstructiveness and tech- 
nicality " to bear against the purchase of St. Thomas and Cuba. 
Edmunds was in favor of the acquisition of British Columbia. 

When Sumner had finished his monograph and handed it to 
the magazine, he plunged into the preparation of a lecture on 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 537 

" The isTation ". Its preparation, he hoped, would banish un- 
pleasant tlioughts and furnish congenial employment for the 
balance of the recess. He had never stood before a Western au- 
dience. He had never been in the West but once and then with 
little opportunity to mingle with her people. He wished to see 
more of this section, that in later years had added so much to 
the strength and greatness of the Eepublic. He had been fore- 
most in defending her rights and keeping her free. A lecturing 
tour would furnish him an excuse for going, an opportunity for 
seeing, and likewise take him away from Boston for a time. 
He had thoughts too of establishing a home for himself in 
Washington, but doubted his ability to meet the expense of 
such an establishment. The income of his lectures would aid 
this plan. It would do good, he hoped, to call popular attention 
to the nature of our Government and enforce the theory of its 
National character instead of the narrow construction placed 
upon it by the advocates of State Rights. 

The purpose of Sumner's lecture was to combat the idea, 
advanced by John C. Calhoun and the Nullifiers of 1832 and 
the State Rights advocates of the South, tliat we are a union of 
Sovereign States and not a Nation, that this Union is simply 
a league entered into by the States, which retain, however, their 
sovereign character, that they can withdraw from it at pleasure 
and re-established themselves in new relations at will, that a few 
rights are specifically granted to the general Government, that 
all others are reserved by the States, including the right to 
establish slavery, fix the right to vote, etc. This theory had 
culminated in the Rebellion. Sumner insisted, to the contrary, 
that we were a Nation, that though many things are necessarily 
left to local self-government in the hands of the States, the 
great principles of unity and Human Rights are under the 
control of the central Government. This had been a con- 
trolling principle of Sumner's public life. He believed this 
theory, as important to be kept in mind now as ever, that 
though the war was over and this construction had prevailed, 
there was danger of its being forgotten. He thought the Nation 
should shun those pestilent persons, who would carry trifles to 
the highest magistrate, but should hold firmly to the great car- 
dinal principles of human rights, that it should insure equality, 
abolish all discriminations among citizens and refuse to tolerate 
the preposterous pretension that color, whether of the hair or 
of the skin, or any other unchangeable circumstance of natural 
condition, may be made a qualification of the voter. The essen- 
tial condition of our National life, he insisted, should be, " one 
sovereignty, one citizenship, one people ". The Rebellion had 



588 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

proceeded from hostility to the principle of equality of all men, 
therefore this principle must now be made the supreme law, 
that we could not trample out the Rebellion, till the principle 
that produced it was trampled out also. 

Sumner cited examples of the perils of a nation, composed 
of separate, independent communities; disunited Italy, a prey 
to petty princes and petty republics, tempting the foreigner by 
her " fatal gift " of beauty, till reunited by Garibaldi ; Ger- 
many, with her magnificent territory stretching from the Baltic 
to the Adriatic and the Alps, with great rivers, one language, 
one intellectual life and one name, yet only a patchwork of 
States, full of extravagant pretensions and discordant egotism, 
each with its own custom house, stifling the aspiration for na- 
tional unity, sapping the national life with perpetual war and 
with strife, till the memorable efforts of Bismarck for unity; 
France divided into great provinces, Normandy, Brittany, 
Burgundy, Provence, Languedoc and Gascony, ruled over by 
quarrelsome barons, threatening nullification and sharing tur- 
bulence, till the lilies of a united nation floated over her proud 
and victorious people. The Colonies had passed through a sim- 
ilar experience and the present union was formed to prevent a 
continuance of its evils. Our Constitution demonstrates our 
national character. Its preamble commences " We, the people," 
it guarantees to all the States a republican form of government, 
it asserts its supremacy over the constitution and laws of every 
State, and it was opposed and vindicated at the time of its 
adoption as creating a National Government. He argued that 
our National character was also shown by the flag with its alter- 
nate stripes of red and white, with its stars on a field of blue ; 
and by the configuration of the country chosen to be united, 
from ocean to ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf, joined by one 
great network of rivers, binding all together. 

The delivery of this lecture occupied his time from October 
seventh, when it was delivered first, at Pontiac, Michigan, 
until November nineteenth, when it was delivered in New 
York. It was repeated, between these dates, twenty-six times, 
read during the first part, and without notes the last part of the 
time. His appointments were in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, 
Iowa, Missouri and Ohio, in the West; and in Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Maine and New York, in the East. 

At the close of this lecture tour, he plunged into the work of 
removing from the old home, in Hancock Street, Boston. It 
was a sad task to leave the home of his childhood, ren- 
dered still sadder by thoughts of the domestic calamity that 
finally prompted it. To Longfellow he revealed his feeling of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 539 

despondency, when he declared that from this home he had 
buried his father and mother, a brother and three sisters and 
that he was now leaving it, " the deadest of them all." With 
a heavy heart the family papers were sorted and the furniture 
was wrapped and the accumulation of his own books and casts 
and pictures were packed, preparatory to vacating for the new 
occupant. How the memories of dear ones, all gone, gathered 
around each familiar object and looked at him, out of each 
well-known corner! It seemed like desecration, to ask these 
pictures to leave their accustomed places and irreverence to the 
dead. How the thoughts of childhood and mother and sister 
seemed to linger still about the dear, deserted place! The 
chill November days without, were no more dreary than his 
thoughts within. At last the sad work was finished and by the 
beginning of December he was in Washington ready to move 
into his new home. 

He had purchased, for thirty thousand dollars, a house on La- 
fayette Square and only across that square from the White 
House grounds. It was in the best district in Washington, 
near to and in plain view of the Executive Mansion, not far 
from the Departments and the Embassies, fronting on a beauti- 
ful park, one of the largest in the city, on a corner where sun- 
light and fresh air were abundant and within easy walk, of a 
dozen squares, down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Capitol. The 
house was commodious, on the first floor a drawing-room, 
library and dining-room, on the second a guest-chamber and his 
bedroom with his study between. These rooms were all large, 
airy and well-lighted. Below and above these floors were the 
kitchen and servants' quarters. It was in his study on the 
second floor, with his windows looking out across the Park to 
the White House that he spent most of his time and ordinarily 
entertained his friends. Here he worked and read and wrote. 
A door opened from one end of it into his own bedroom and, 
from the other, it opened into his guest chamber. This house 
continued to be his home for the remainder of his life; and it 
was here he died. 

He dreaded the experiment of housekeeping. He feared it 
was beyond his means, though by the death of his mother, his 
fortune had now been increased to one hundred thousand 
dollars. Forty thousand dollars of this sum, were his previous 
accumulations. But with the large expenditure for his house 
and the further amount tliat would be necessary to furnish it, 
together with the expense of maintaining it, with hired help 
exclusively, being himself without experience to aid him in such 



590 I-IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

matters, he feared that his remaining income would not be 
equal to the drain upon it. 

On the other hand he was tired of boarding-houses and 
longed for greater freedom and a little more of the feeling of 
proprietorship, in his surioundings. Though avoiding parties, 
he was entertained much. His long residence at the Capitol 
and his leadership in the Senate, called him into prominence 
socially. His chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions and his extensile foreign acquaintance brought him 
into social relations with the foreign embassies. He enjoyed 
the social life of the Capitol. He loved the companionship of 
distinguished men and liked to be upon terms of intimacy with 
them ; and at the social board, no other voice entered more fully 
and more heartily into the life of the occasion. Indeed he 
Avas criticised for having somewhat of the disposition of 
Macaulay to override others in conversation. He was full of 
anecdotes of persons and places, which he loved to recall to 
himself and others and, while not a wit, his ready and hearty 
laugh responded freely to the sallies of others. It was in such 
things and his books, that he found his truest recreation. His 
friends, knowing this, urged the change upon him. It would 
relieve the solitude of his life and enable him to give, as well as 
receive entertainment. 

He usually, while occupying this house, arose about seven 
each morning, breakfasted at 8 : 30 and dined at 5 :30. These 
were his only times of eating. He occupied himself while at 
the morning meal, with a hurried examination of his mail. 
This meal being over, his letters were answered and others 
written, with the aid of his secretaries, clerks of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, which he, as Chairman, selected. 
All of them were at the time young men and between them 
and Sumner there then and ever after existed a warm and 
affectionate relation. The balance of the forenoon was con- 
sumed in the examination of questions pending before the 
Senate, with persons who called to see him, the work of C*om- 
mittees, etc. ; the afternoons were occupied with the sessions 
of the Senate. After dinner he drove; and his evenings were 
spent at his home, usually at work on his speeches or other work 
of his office. Eleven hours he counted a day's work, but they 
were often prolonged beyond that. His regular hour of retiring 
was at midniglit, but wlien pressed, he would remain up and at 
work later, sometimes all night, substituting a change of linen 
for the refreshment of a night's rest. 

He had now an opportunity to gratify his taste for paintings, 
engravings and curios and during the remainder of his life he 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 59I 

bought them freely. The walls of the rooms and halls of his 
liome were filled with them. To one who expressed astonish- 
ment that he resorted to the popular horse-cars of the day, 
instead of keeping a carriage and horses of his own, he replied 
that if he did that, he could not enjoy these things, pointing to 
his pictures and curios, adding that they were a part of his life, 
while he could dispense with the other. Here he kept his col- 
lection of rare and valuable books. It was a delight for him 
to go from one to another of these treasures and exhibit them 
to his friends, dwelling upon the life of an artist or the merits 
of a picture or the interesting history of some rare book, John 
Bunyan's Bible, an exercise book that the poet Dryden had 
studied when a boy at school, a tragedy of Voltaire, and Pope's 
" Essay on Man," each with the author's own corrections for 
new editions, a book which had belonged to England's Queen, 
Anne Boleyn, anotlier of her daughter. Queen Elizabeth, still 
another of the great Napoleon and, most precious of all, the 
Album kept at Geneva, Switzerland, by a Neapolitan nobleman, 
in which were secured the autographs of distinguished visitors 
to that city, among the rest that of England's great Earl of 
Strafford and another of John Milton under a couplet from his 
Comus : 

"if virtue feeble were 

Heaven itself would stoope to her." 

While occupying this house, Sumner seldom dined alone. He 
would bring a friend with him from the House or the Senate, 
or a member of the diplomatic corps, or some visitor or con- 
stituent, who happened to be in Washington. Here George 
William Curtis dined almost daily, when in Washington, as 
Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. Here Charles 
Dickens met Stanton at dinner and heard him and his host 
recount their experiences, on the night of the assassination of 
Lincoln, as well as Stanton's confession, how on many nights 
of anxiety during the Rebellion he had gone to bed, with one 
of Dickens' novels under his pillow, so that if the hours proved 
sleepless, he could drive away the thoughts of his work, with 
the absorption of his book. Here William M. Evarts came late 
to dinner on a Sunday, during his preparation for the trial of 
the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and apologized, for his 
tardiness and such work on that day, by the scriptural inquiry : 
" which of you shall have an ass * * * fallen into a pit and 
will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day ? " 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON THE EVENTS 

THAT LED UP TO IT — SUMNER ARGUES THAT WADE QUAL- 
IFIED TO SIT — THAT CHIEF JUSTICE CANNOT RULE OR VOTE 
— OPINION ON THE CASE 

The session of Congress of 1867-8 is memorable for the im- 
peachment of President Johnson. No other attempt has ever 
been made to impeach a President. The events that have been 
narrated in these pages, show how Congress was provoked to 
this step. The reader will remember his numerous vetoes; his 
hostility to Reconstruction Laws ; his wholesale removals from 
office, to make room for his friends, that prompted the Tenure 
of Office Law ; his pronounced sympathy for the South ; his in- 
temperate public speeches, attacking Congress before the people 
as an unconstitutional body, because not admitting to member- 
ship, persons returned by the States lately in rebellion, his 
coarse references to some of its Members and even to private 
citizens, who were prominent in work for the Freedmen. Few 
men would have had the temerity to continue the hopeless fight, 
as he did, against a defiant majority, in both Houses, that stood 
ready with a two-thirds vote to pass measures over his vetoes. 
Still fewer would have continued it, after the overwhelming 
defeat which his " policy " sustained, in the popular election 
of 1866. The patience of no Congress was ever put to a severer 
test. 

Talk of impeachment had been rife for many months in 
Congressional circles. Sumner favored it. But calmer coun- 
sels had prevailed. On January seventh, 1867, James M. 
Ashley, a Representative from Ohio, presented, in the House, 
formal charges against the President of a corrupt use of the 
appointing, and pardoning and veto powers and of corruptly 
interfering with elections. The charges were referred to the 
Judiciary Committee of which James F. Wilson, of Iowa, was 
chairman. Evidence was taken by this Committee, not enough 
to justify a final report, but enough to warrant, at the expira- 
tion of the Congress, a majority report recommending a fur- 
tlier investigation of the charges by the succeeding Congress. 
Five days later, in tlie next Congress, Ashley moved that the 
Judiciary Committee be directed to continue the investigation. 
593 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 593 

The motion carried by a small majority. The Committee by a 
vote of five to four afterwards recommended impeachment. 
The debate, on this report, was limited to a speech on each side, 
Boutwell for, and Wilson, the Chairman of the Committee,' 
against. Both were Republicans. The vote was taken the day 
after the conclusion of the debate and the recommendation of 
the Committee was defeated by the overwhelming vote of fifty- 
seven to one hundred and eight. Only Republicans voted for it. 
With the Democrats who voted against it, there were sixty-five 
Republicans, among them Allison, Bingham, Blaine, Garfield, 
AVilson and the four Washburns. 

From these names and this vote, it will be seen that im- 
peachment was not yet popular. The conservative men of the 
country, both in and out of Congress, were generally against 
it. Even the Republicans that voted against it did not pretend 
to be satisfied with the course of the President, but their feeling 
was that his conduct did not justify such extreme punishment. 
The country, generally, after the years of turmoil it had wit- 
nessed, hoped for peace and that business interests would 
be spared this new disturbance. But there were determined 
men, of large experience and great ability, among its ad- 
vocates; Boutwell, Butler, Kelley, Logan, Lawrence, Schenck 
and Thaddeus Stevens. Among them, there was anger and 
bitterness at its defeat. While they were defeated, they were 
not discouraged, but were determined to bide their time, feeling 
that their opportunity might yet come. And it did come soon. 

There had been trouble between the President and his 
Cabinet. Very early, some of the members found themselves 
unable to agree with him. Dennison, Postmaster-General; 
Speed, Attorney-General; Harlan, of the Interior Depart- 
ment, against the advice of friends who urged them to retain 
their offices so as to limit his power and prevent his use of the 
patronage, had, one after another, offered their resignations. 
The resignations were promptly accepted and willing servants 
of the President at once took their places. Stanton, of the War 
Department, was likewise persona non grata to the President, 
but was of a different disposition from the others, and refused 
to take the frequent hints given him to resign. At last the 
President, on August fifth, 1867, wrote Stanton: " Public con- 
siderations, of a high character, constrain me to say that your 
resignation, as Secretary of War, will be accepted." Stanton 
as tartly answered : " I have the honor to say that public con- 
siderations, of a high character, which alone have induced me 
to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me not to 
resign the Secretaryship of War, before the next meeting of 



594 I^I^E OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Congress." On the twelfth, he was suspended and directed to 
turn over the office to General Grant, who was appointed 
Secretary ad interim. Stanton yielded, but protested, in writ- 
ing, that he submitted " under protest, to superior force." 

The Tenure of Office Law required the President to commu- 
nicate this suspension, with his reasons for it, to the Senate, 
v/ithin twenty days after its next meeting. This he did on 
December twelfth, 1867, just five days after the House had 
voted down the resolution of impeachment. The Senate, on 
January thirteenth, 1868, refused to concur in the suspension. 
General Grant upon receiving notice of this action of the 
Senate, promptly vacated the office and Stanton as promptly 
resumed it. The President hoped that Grant would retain the 
office, notwithstanding the action of tlie Senate, till the con- 
stitutionality of the Tenure of Office Law could be tested, in the 
courts, by a suit for his removal. Grant had no thought of 
compromising himself in any such manner. His prompt vaca- 
tion displeased the President and angry letters were exchanged, 
which left them enemies for life. 

Stanton was now back in office. But the controversy was not 
ended. On the twenty-first day of February, 1868, the Presi- 
dent removed him, and appointed Lorenzo Thomas, Secretary 
ad interim and on the same day notified the Senate of his 
action. Sumner had all the time watched the struggle with 
increasing interest. His experience with the President 
privately on his accession to the office, when he had tried to 
keep him firm for the equal rights of the freedmen; and later, 
when in the Senate, he had sought to prevent him squandering 
the hard-earned fruits of the war, by restoring those lately in 
rebellion to power, without any changed conditions; and to 
defeat his wholesale removal of loyal men from office, to make 
places for his friends, had made Sumner impatient with him. 
Sumner wrote Stanton a note, in pencil, from his seat in the 
Senate, with the single word " stick," in the body of it. The 
note came afterwards into the possession of Ben Perley Poore 
and was sold at auction, in 1888, to a dealer in autographs. 
It is hardly necessary to add that Stanton did '^ stick." 

The Senate was surprised and- indignant at the action of the 
President and promptly passed a resolution that he had no 
power to make the removal. It was just here that the i-eal con- 
troversy in the impeacliment proceedings arose ; the Presi- 
dent's friends claimed that he had. The question depended 
upon the construction to be given the Tenure of Office Law. 
The same day tliat the Senate angrily passed this resolution, a 
second resolution of impeachment was offered, in the House, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



595 



and it was at once referred to the Committee on Reconstruc- 
tion, of which Thaddeus Stevens was chairman. The House 
then adjourned. 

Little doubt remained of what would be the fate of the 
resolution, m the hands of a committee, thus officered, and 
which had experienced so much trouble with the President. 
The next day it was reported back, with the recommendation 
that it pass, and that the question be taken without debate. 

But the Members were in no humor to pass such a measure, 
without allowing expression to their pent up feelings. An 
angry debate followed in which more speakers addressed the 
House than ever before, in a single day. The expressions 
upon each side were bitter in the extreme and fill more than 
two hundred of the large and closely printed columns of the 
Congressional Globe. Several Democrats, perhaps appreciating 
the ludicrous exhibition of wrath, by the Republicans, tried to 
have Washington's Farewell Address, full of counsels of 
moderation and of peace and good will to his countrymen, read, 
but unable to succeed in this, one of them obtained leave to 
print it with his remarks, in the Globe; and there it stands 
to-day among the records of that day's angry utterances. 
At the close of the debate, the vote was taken and every Repub- 
lican, that voted, was for impeachment and every Democrat 
was against it. One Democrat and a few Republicans did not 
vote. There were one hundred and twenty-six votes for im- 
peachment and only forty-seven against it. 

Thaddeus Stevens and John A. Bingham were appointed to 
notify the Senate of the action of the House. With five other 
members, they were also appointed to draw up Articles of Im- 
peachment and with Boutwell, Wilson, Butler, Williams and 
Logan they were made Managers to present the case on behalf 
of the House to the Senate. In the choice of Managers, John 
A. Bingham received the highest number of votes and thereby 
became chairman of the board. Henry Stanberry, the Attorney- 
General, William M. Evarts, of New York, Benj. R. Curtis, of 
Boston, William S. Groesbeck, of Cincinnati, and T. A.' R. 
Nelson, of Tennessee, represented the President. 

On the fourth day of March, attended by the House, the 
Managers appeared, at the bar of the Senate, and the chairman, 
Bingham, read the articles of impeachment. On the two suc- 
ceeding days the oath was administered to the Chief Justice 
and Senators, rules of procedure were adopted and a summons 
was ordered to be issued to the President, to appear and answer 
the charges, returnable on the thirteenth day of March. 

When the name of Senator Wade was called to receive the 



596 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

oath, to be taken by Senators, upon the trial of an impeachment, 
Senator Hendricks objected that he was not competent to sit, 
inasmuch as he was the President pro tern of the Senate and 
woukl become President of the United States, if the impeach- 
ment be sustained. The objection provoked a debate. The 
question was an important one. A two-thirds vote was re- 
quired to convict and, if the result be close, he might have the 
casting vote. Sumner argued that the Constitution settled the 
question, that impeachments were to be tried by the Senate, 
that this meant the whole Senate, that in such trial each State 
was entitled to have two Senators, that one of these from Ohio 
was Senator Wade. The clause in the Constitution providing 
that, when the President is impeached, the Chief Justice shall 
preside, he showed from contemporaneous authority was not 
inserted to disqualify the President of the Senate from taking 
part, because of his interest in the result as was asserted ; but 
because he might be called upon, in case of the suspension of 
the President, to act in his place and hence be absorbed in the 
discharge of the duties of that office and by reason thereof not 
have the time to preside at the trial. Before, however, a vote 
was taken upon this question, the objection to administering 
the oath to Mr. Wade was withdrawn by Mr. Hendricks and 
he was sworn and afterwards, without objection, voted upon 
each of the three articles of impeachment, upon which a vote 
was taken. 

On the thirteenth day of March the President entered his 
formal appearance, by his attorneys, and asked that forty days 
be allowed him, for preparation. The Managers insisted that 
the trial proceed at once. But the Senate fixed it for the 
thirtieth day of March. 

In the meeting of the Managers for the distribution of their 
work, the most desirable place, the closing argument, was as- 
signed to the chairman, John A. Bingham. Benjamin F. 
Butler desired to open the case and put in the evidence. He has 
narrated how these duties were disposed of in. the meeting. 
*' ' But who,' he inquired, ' is to make the opening argument 
and put the case in form for presentation, in the Senate ? There 
are less than three days, in which to prepare it. Who is anxious 
for that place ? ' There were not many candidates for that 
labor, and I said, ' Very well. I suppose as usual the opening 
of the case will fall upon the youngest counsel and that is my- 
self. * * * It was agreed that I should prepare the case and 
make the opening argument and I thought it would not be of 
much consequence, after that was done, who did the rest. And 
thus I became the leading figure of the impeachment, for better 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 597 

or for worse * * * l came to the conclusion to try the case 
upon the same rules of evidence and in the same manner as I 
should try a horse case and I knew how to do that." Judging 
from his want of success in this case, the inference would be 
that he did himself honor over much, in saying that he knew 
how to try a horse case. 

The trial was held in the Senate Chamber. The hall and its 
spacious galleries were filled to their utmost capacity. The 
House attended in a body and were provided with seats on the 
floor. The diplomatic gallery was filled with the representatives 
of foreign countries, eager to see the spectacle of a free people 
bringing to trial their sovereign ruler for malfeasance in oflfice. 
The press gallery was crowded with correspondents, who were 
to convey the news of what took place, to the millions of plain 
people, in their homes, who were watching the action of their 
representatives. The beauty and the intelligence of the Capitol 
and its visitors filled to overflowing the remaining space. 

Salmon P. Chase, the Chief Justice, who presided, after an 
eminent career at the bar, and in political life, as Governor 
and Senator from Ohio, and Secretary of the Treasury, during 
the trying years of the war, was now filling the highest judicial 
station of his country. He sat erect, broad-shouldered, deep- 
chested with a heacl and face of noble mould, one of the hand- 
somest men of his day. Bingham, t]ie chairman of the 
Managers, with the refined and sensitive face and the grace of a 
poet, was still in his prime. He was the lifelong friend of 
Stanton, living in the town where the great Secretary first 
commenced the practice of law. With him he had grown up 
to greatness ; for they were rivals at the bar and jointly debated 
political questions, Stanton in those days being a Democrat. 
Bingham had been a member of the House since the birth of the 
Eepublican party and, as a brilliant and effective orator, his 
fame was as wide as his country. He was supported, perhaps it 
would be more proper to say, he was led, by his great colleague 
Thaddeus Stevens, now wasting with disease and within six 
months of his death, but with the grim heroism of his nature, 
dragging, with his last breath, a great offender, as he believed, 
to the bar of justice. 

But in legal attainments, the Managers were outdone by their 
opponents. Henry Stanberry, who organized the President's 
defence, and paid the penalty of it with his office, was his At- 
torney-General. He was an able lawyer and resigned his 
office to take part in the case. After its close, the Senate 
refused to ratify his reappointment, as Attorney-General, by 
Johnson. William M. Evarts, who did succeed him, as well as 



598 J^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Benjamin E. Curtis and William S. Groesbeck, who were 
associated with him in the case, were at the head of the bars of 
New York, Boston and Cincinnati respectively. Curtis had 
been a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
by his dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case, as well as his 
otber work, had acquired a wide reputation ; but the work 
proving distasteful, he resigned to return to the practice. 

In tbe articles of impeachment there were eleven charges, 
but they may all be comprehended in four; first. The removal 
of Stanton and appointment of Thomas; second, Instructing 
General Emory that the law requiring all military orders made 
by the President or Secretary of War to be issued through the 
General of the Army, was unconstitutional ; third, The Presi- 
dent's speeches against Congress ; fourth. The attempt of the 
President to prevent the execution of the Tenure of Othce Law, 
the Army Appropriation Law and the law for the more efhcient 
government of the Eebel States. The case was really tried 
upon two, the removal of Stanton and the intemperate speeches 
of the President and, of these, the greatest stress was laid upon 
the removal of Stanton. 

The President had made coarse, intemperate and ill-timed 
speeches, at the White House, on August eighteenth, 18G6, at 
Cleveland, Obio, on Sei3tember third, 186G, and at St. Louis on 
September eighth, 18GG, charging Congres's with promoting 
disunion and discord between tlie North and the South and 
preventing reconciliation between the sections, with trying to 
break up the government, calling its members traitors, so nam- 
ing some of them individually, and calling upon the people to 
aid him in kicking them out of office. 

There could be no justification for such speeches. They were 
unbecoming any person and were especially unbecoming a 
President when speaking of one of the co-ordinate departments 
of liis government. He had a riglit to differ from Congress in 
opinion ; and he had a right to maintain his own views, in 
public speeches. The constitution expressly guarantees the 
right of freedom of speech. But no one has a right, anywhere, 
to be less than a gentleman. Coarse speech always degrades 
tbe author of it. But in this case, his apologists could well urge 
that he had said nothing more bitter of Congress, than Con- 
gress had said of him. 

As to the removal of Stanton, a more extended explanation 
is required. The Tenure of Office Law provided " That every 
person holding any civil office, to which he has been appointed 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every 
jjerson who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office, and 



LIFE OF CHARLEB SUMNER 599 

shall become duly qualified to act therein, is, and shall be, en- 
titled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like 
manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein other- 
u'ise Provided. That the Secretary of State, of the Treasury, 
of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster- 
General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices 
respectively for and during the term of the President, by whom 
they may have been appointed, and for one month thereafter, 
subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate." 

Stanton was appointed by President Lincoln, durino^ his first 
term, whicli expired March fourth, 1865, and was to hold 
" during the pleasure of the President, for the time being," 
according to the words of his commission. The term of Presi- 
dent Lincoln had expired and he had taken the oath of office 
and entered upon a new term, after a new election. Stanton 
liad continued to hold the office during his second term, until 
his assassination, and likewise under President Johnson, with- 
out any new appointment or other commission. It was insisted 
by the President and his friends that Stanton's term expired 
under the proviso in the Tenure of Office Law, thirty days 
after the expiration of President Lincoln's first term, that the 
word " term " as used in tliis statute meant the four years for 
which the President was elected and, if succeeding to office as 
President Johnson did, the time that he was legally to 
hold the office, that as Secretary Stanton had held beyond the 
thirty days after the expiration of President Lincoln's first 
term he had held merely by sufferance. Hence President John- 
son's friends claimed that Stanton was not protected in his 
office by the Tenure of Office Law, but was holding over simply 
and that the President had a right to tell him so, at any time, 
and appoint his successor, as he had done, and that by so doing 
the law was not violated. It was this view that prevailed. 

The opponents of the President believed otherwise. Sum- 
ner argued that such a construction of the word " term " in 
this law made it retroactive as to Stanton, who was in office 
when it passed, that it was a penal statute and therefore would 
become an ex-post facto laiv and hence unconstitutional, if 
such a construction be placed upon it, that it also made Con- 
gress enact the absurdity that Stanton had for two years been 
holding office illegally, whereas he had been holding under 
the clearest legal title, which could no more be altered by leg- 
islation than black could be made white, that such a construc- 
tion, which made the statute at once unconstitutional and 
absurd, should be rejected. He insisted, on the contrary, that 



600 ^JPE ^F CHARLES SUMNER 

President Lincoln's term did not expire with his life but con- 
tinued until March 4, 18G9, the expiration of the four years 
for which he was elected and that with this construction Stan- 
ton wr.s entitled to hold until April 4, 1869. He believed 
farther, that Stanton should be considered as appointed by 
President Johnson, that the continuance of Stanton in office 
with the concurrence of President Johnson was the equivalent of 
an appointment, that he was in the office by the choice of the 
President, when the law was passed and that his continuance 
there by the President was to be treated as another commis- 
sion, that this view also gave effect to the intention of the 
framers of the act, violated no sound canon of construction and 
was entirely reasonable, in every respect. 

Great efforts were made by some of the President's friends 
to show that Stanton did not come within the protection of 
the proviso of this law. Sumner insisted that such friends for- 
got that if the Secretary did not come within the special pro- 
tection of the proviso he must come within the general protec- 
tion of the body of the act as " a person holding a civil office " 
and, therefore, " entitled to hold such office until a successor 
shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified," 
that if they turned him out of the proviso he must fall within 
the body of the act, unless they " placed him in a sort of in- 
termediate limbo, like a lost spirit floating in space," a con- 
struction utterly unreasonable and, like every construction 
contrary to common sense, to be rejected. 

Sumner advocated the broadest treatment of the subject. He 
argued that impeachment was a political not a judicial pro- 
ceeding, that it was before a political body, for political 
purposes, subject to a political judgment only, expulsion from 
office, that therefore the same technicality of procedure could 
not be required, as in a court. Hence he argued that impeach- 
ment was not necessarily a trial for a " crime," as that word is 
known to the common law, that offences unknown to it, such 
as the wanton removal of meritorious officers, would subject tlie 
President to impeachment, that the exact minuteness of a crim- 
inal court should be discarded and the procedure adapted to a 
common understanding, that they could not be held in the 
articles of impeachment to a close description of the offence as 
if it were an indictment, nor to the rules of evidence as they are 
followed in the courts. He voted to admit all the evidence, not 
trivial or obviously irrelevant, offered during the trial, leaving 
Senators to determine what weight should be given to it. He 
believed the Senators should take notice of such matters as 
were within their knowledge, even though not charged or 



LIFE OF CHARLEU SUMNER 601 

proven, as, that Johnson appeared before the Senate, in a dis- 
graceful state of intoxication, when he took the oath of office as 
Vice-President ; that he had appointed incompetent and 
dishonest officials, as in the " Whiskey Ring," that had robbed 
the Treasury ; that he had obstructed the Civil Rights Law ; had 
undertaken to prevent the execution of the Freedman Bureau 
Law, to succor starving and homeless negroes in the South; 
and had sought to defeat the ratification, by the Southern 
States, of the Fourteenth Amendment, giving the guarantees 
of irrepealable law to the equal rights of the citizen and to the 
payment of the national debt. 

There is much authority in English and French impeachment 
cases, as Sumner showed for the breadth of treatment, which he 
advocated. But precedents on the subject of impeachment from 
those countries do iiot carry the weight of authority here, that 
the decisions of their courts do upon other questions. Some of 
them, as the Earl of Strafford's case cited, bear too close a re- 
lation to the revolutions in those countries and recall some of 
the darkest pages in their history. Sumner felt that the arti- 
cles of impeachment did not state the whole case against the 
President and he was undoubtedly correct in this conclusion. 
But the President was clearly entitled to have the charges upon 
which he was to be tried set out, so as to know in advance what 
he would be called upon to answer. In a matter of such im- 
portance, if it was intended to try him for his other offences, 
they should have been charged in the articles. 

A question arose upon the right of the Chief Justice to rule 
or vote. Sumner argued that the Chief Justice was not a 
member of the Senate and that his duty was simply to put the 
question and direct generally the conduct of the business, with- 
out undertaking in any way, by voice or vote, to determine any 
question. In this conclusion he differed from the Chief Jus- 
tice, who claimed the right to rule upon questions of admis- 
sibility of evidence. The attorneys for the President offered to 
prove that when the Tenure of Office Bill was before the Presi- 
dent for approval he was advised by his Cabinet that it was 
unconstitutional and the duty of preparing the message to 
accompany the veto devolved on Seward and Stanton, The 
Chief Justice decided that this testimony was competent, to 
show that he acted in good faith, under advice, in vetoing it. 
His decision was appealed from and the Senate overruled him 
and the testimony was excluded. Again, the Chief Justice ruled 
that it was competent for the President to show that when the 
Tenure of Office Law was under discussion in the Cabinet the 
opinion was expressed generally that the Cabinet officers ap- 



603 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

pointed by Mr. Lincoln were not within the restrictions placed 
on President Johnson's power of removal. Again he was 
overruled by the Senate. After that, the Chief Justice, without 
ruling upon the objection made to testimony, referred the mat- 
ter to a vote of the Senate. These rulings of the Chief Justice 
were generally accepted by the public as correct and the adverse 
votes of the Senate produced a bad impression. Sumner be- 
lieved the testimony should have been admitted, but he insisted 
that the Chief Justice had no right to rule upon it and thus 
influence the proceedings. 

The claim was also made that the Chief Justice, in the event 
of a tie, had the right to vote. He did vote upon some unim- 
portant matters. Sumner was unwilling to allow any such 
claim. He insisted that the Constitution expressly provided 
that the Senate is to " have the sole power to try all impeach- 
ments " and that convictions could only be had by " the con- 
currence of two-thirds of the members present " and that these 
two provisions confined the right to vote to the Senators alone. 

He offered a resolution that the Chief Justice had no right 
to vote on any question during the trial and that he could pro- 
nounce a decision only as the organ of the Senate and with its 
assent. This was voted down ; but the Senate afterwards 
adopted a rule providing that the Chief Justice " may rule all 
questions of evidence and incidental questions, which ruling 
shall stand as the judgment of the Senate, unless some mem- 
ber of the Senate shall ask that a formal vote be taken thereon, 
in which case it shall be submitted to the Senate for decision; 
or he may at his option, in the first instance, submit any such 
question to a vote of the members of the Senate." 

At the close of his argument upon this question, which Sum- 
ner filed and had printed in the proceedings with his opinion in 
the case, he made a graceful reference to his co-operation with 
the Chief Justice, in the anti-slavery cause, in the years pre- 
ceding the war: 

" I cannot bring this survey to an end without an expression 
of deep regret that I find myself constrained to differ from the 
Chief Justice," he said. " In faithful fellowship, for long years, 
we have striven together for the establishment of Liberty and 
Equality .as the fundamental law of this Republic. I know his 
fidelity, and revere his services, but not on this account can I 
hesitate the less, when I find him claiming in this Chamber an 
important power which, in my judgment, is three times denied 
in the National Constitution: first when it is declared that the 
Senate alone shall try impeachment ; secondly, when it is de- 
clared that only members shall convict; and thirdly, when it is 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 603 

declared that the Chief Justice shall preside and nothing more, 
thus conferring upon him those powers only, which by par- 
liamentary law belong to a presiding officer not a member of 
the body. In the face of such a claim, so entirely without ex- 
ample, and of such possible consequences, I cannot be silent. 
Eeluctantly and painfully I offer this respectful protest." 

An incident occurred during the trial that shows how sen- 
sitive Sumner was of the dignity of the Senate. During the 
heat of his argument on April twenty-eighth, Nelson of Ten- 
nessee, one of the President's attorneys, used language toward 
Manager Butler, apparently intended to provoke a duel. 
Promptly upon the opening of the proceedings the next day, 
Sumner offered a resolution of censure and pressed it, until a 
proper apology was made by Mr. Nelson to the Senate. 

The closing argument in the case was finished by Manager 
Bingham on May sixth, 1868. No vote was taken on the guilt 
of the President until May sixteenth, the intervening ten days 
being occupied with discussions of methods of procedure and 
adjournments. Sumner opposed a resolution granting to Sen- 
ators leave to file opinions in the case, giving the reasons for 
their votes; believing the President guilty on all the articles, 
he felt there was no need of explanation or apology for his vote. 
But the resolution having carried, he accepted the invitation 
which it seemed to extend. Twenty-eight other Senators also 
published opinions. Sumner's covers thirty-four pages of the 
report of the proceedings and is the longest and one of the 
most exhaustive of the opinions; but as a legal argument upon 
the question of the President's guilt or innocence, it is not the 
equal of some of the others. The Senate had in it, at that time, 
some very able lawyers, who embraced this opportunity of ex- 
plaining their votes. Sumner, as a lawyer, was not the equal of 
some of these Senators. He had quit the bar early and never 
had an extensive practice. 

It wfls decided to vote on the several articles of impeachment 
separately, the vote first to be taken on the eleventh and last 
article, excluding Stanton from office after the Senate refused 
to concur in his suspension, interfering with the execution of 
certain acts of Congress and denying the power of Congress to 
pass laws because the Eebel States were not represented. Each 
Senator as his name w^as called was to rise to his feet and an- 
nounce his vote, guilty or not guilty, as charged in this article. 
It was decided to vote on this article first, because it was a 
compendium of the principal charges and a vote upon it would 
therefore show the greatest strength of the prosecution. 

The vote showed thirty-five for conviction and nineteen 



g04 J^lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

against so that the necessary two-thirds not voting guilty, the 
impeachment was not sustained on this article. A change of 
one vote would have changed the result. An adjournment was 
taken for ten days and a vote was then taken upon the second 
and third articles, but with the same result. No farther vote 
was taken and none of the articles of impeachment having been 
sustained, by a two-thirds vote of the members present, a gen- 
eral judgment of acquittal was ordered and the Senate, sitting 
as a court of impeachment, adjourned without day. 

The great trial was ended and the President was clear. It 
■was a hasty, ill-advised, and, on the part of his prosecutors, in 
many respects, a badly managed proceeding. The haste and 
want of care with which it was conceived showed itself early. 
From the commencement, its friends felt hampered by the 
omission from the articles of all reference to the most serious 
fault of the President, his persistently hostile attitude toward 
the North and his championship of the South, in the settle- 
ment of all questions growing out of the war. Another mis- 
take was made by the House in permitting the prominence of 
General Butler in the proceedings. He did not possess the 
public confidence and his methods and manner were not suited 
to his position. The sympathy of the Chief Justice was felt to 
be against the proceeding and his influence with the people was 
large. But the people felt that the result was right, that the 
precedent of impeaching a President, on such grounds as 
existed, would have been much more prejudicial to the country, 
than anything he had done or w^ould be able to do, in the 
little of his term that remained. The real fault of the Presi- 
dent was a going over to the opposition, while in office, and for 
this, political defeat and not impeachment w^as the remedy. It 
was Congress that was especially outraged by his conduct and 
the fight was peculiarly theirs. The moral results of it, indeed, 
were with Congress, at last. At the close of it, all chance of 
the President succeeding himself was at an end ; the North 
was awakened to the danger of his re-election ; neither party 
was willing to make him its candidate. In nine months he 
gave place to General Grant; and Andrew Johnson, as a force 
in National politics, then disappeared forever. Though he 
was returned to the Senate six years later, his brief service of 
less than a month was only signalized by a vindictive assault 
upon those who had been the friends of his best days. His 
strange career was then closed by death. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

NEW POLITICAL QUESTIONS— THE CAMPAIGN OF 1868— ORANT 
ELECTED — SUMNER RE-ELECTED TO SENATE — ^A. T. STEWART 
DISQUALIFIED FOR SECRETARY OF TREASURY — FISH, SECRE- 
TARY OF STATE — MOTLEY 

In the campaign for the election of General Grant other 
questions were forcing themselves to the front. The large na- 
tional debt, which accumulated during the war, was fruitful of 
contention. One question was whether it should be paid soon, 
which involved the maintenance of the income tax and high 
revenues on tobacco and whiskey and the existing tariff rates or 
whether a part of the debt should be left for future generati'ons 
to pay and these means of raising money be modified. Repudia- 
tion m different forms was being discussed. No party had ad- 
vocated repudiation pure and simple, by an outright refusal to 
pay the Government bonds. It would have been a very bold 
move, to ask openly the votes of a free people, upon such a 
plank as that, in a political platform. But the bonds were 
payable in coin, and there were open advocates of the payment 
of them in greenbacks, which were at the time depreciated. 
The argument was made that the Government making green- 
backs a legal tender for the payment of other debts, should 
also require the bondholders to accept them in payment of 
the principal and interest of their bonds. To pay a debt in a 
paper dollar worth fifty cents, in the markets of the world that 
was stipulated to be paid in a gold or silver dollar, worth one 
hundred cents everywhere, would be repudiation in fact, if not 
in name. 

Another question growing out of this same condition was 
thetaxation of the Government bonds. The laws providing for 
their issue and under which they were sold, provided that they 
should be exempt from all taxes. State or National. The claim 
was now made that they should be taxed just as other property 
and that Congress should pass laws requiring it. This would 
result in depreciating the value of the bonds. Their non-tax- 
able character made them a desirable form of investment and 
to take away t^iis character, meant to depreciate their value in 
them ''^'''' "^^'"^^ *^^ Government had sold 

005 



G06 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Still another question that arose, incidentally connected with 
these two, was the resumption of specie payments. If the paper 
dollar was made exchangeable for a dollar in gold or silver 
there could be no longer a question made in what kind of money 
the honds should be paid. A sound financial course upon this 
question would solve the other. 

These questions all arose during the Presidency of Andrew 
Johnson and were discussed in some of the State campaigns. 
Sumner's attention had not been given largely to questions of 
this kind. He had been occupied with slavery and the war and 
the condition of the freedmen. And he had been so prominent 
in the treatment of these subjects that he was credited with 
being especially able in the discussion of them, but was con- 
sidered wanting in qualification for the treatment of financial 
questions. His life had been singidarly free from the ordinary 
problems of money getting. He was born to a condition of 
comfort and, being without family to provide for, his attention 
had been given almost exclusively to the great work of his life. 
But with these new problems that came up for solution he 
developed an unexpected ability for their treatment. He had in 
fact a practical side and a fund of good sense upon common 
matters, partly inherited from his mother, with which he was 
not generally credited. He intuitively saw and followed the 
just and the honest side of a question, involving right and 
wrong. No specious arguments, or pretty theories, seemed to 
trouble him. He went straight to the proposition presented, 
with the question. Is it right? The answer to that simple 
question determined his course. Does the contract provide for 
the payment of these bonds in coin? Does the contract provide 
for the exemption of them from taxation ? If it does, then they 
must be paid in coin and continued exempt from taxation. 
The nation has no more right to violate its contract, than an 
individual. It can no more do so with impunity. Any other 
course involves loss of credit and invites financial ruin. These 
were the considerations that determined him. He studied 
them and he discussed them in this way. 

On July eleventh, 1868, the Senate having under considera- 
tion a bill for the funding of the national debt, he spoke at 
some length and with his customary thoroughness. He argued 
that there was nothing more sensitive than credit, that a breath 
would make it flutter, that the public faith must be sacredly 
preserved above suspicion, that the nation must be as good as 
its bond, that credit was like honor, once lost, more than dis- 
honor must be the consequence, that in itself it was a treasury, 
a tariff and an internal revenue, all in one, that if all these 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



607 



were lost and public faith retained, the others would be re- 
turned, the treasury be replenished, the tariff be renewed, the 
revenue restored, that it must be kept "as the philosopher's 
stone of fable, having which, you have all." In the face of this, 
he said, it was proposed to tax the national bonds, in violation 
of the original contract on which the money w^as lent. Tliey 
might have the power to do this wrong, but never the right. 
They could not make wrong right. The bargain must con- 
tinue unchanged except by consent of the parties, until the 
laws of the universe tumbled into chaos. A proud nation, 
justly sensitive to national honor, could do nothing else. 

ISTot different, he argued, was the proposition to pay the bonds 
with inconvertible paper. On the threshold. Public Faitli 
interposed a summary protest to such a proposition. On such 
a question debate even is dangerous; the man who doubts is 
lost. The Secretaries of the Treasury and their assistants had 
declared they were payable in coin. ' It had been the uniform 
practice to pay them in this kind of money. This practice had 
established precedents that could not be "broken. The money 
had been invested in all the later bonds upon the faith of these 
acts of the Government. They must continue to pay the bonds 
in the same way. 

He advocated, however, a rigid reduction of expenditures 
and the simplification of our system of taxation, by confining 
the tax to fewer articles, such as whiskey and tobacco, so that 
fewer tax-gatherers would be needed and the collection be less 
expensive. The prompt and exact fulfilment of our obligation 
in the payment of tlie bonds he believed would enable us to 
exchange a new bond with a lower rate of interest, running for 
a longer time, for the old bonds at a high rate, soon to expire. 
He called attention to the fact that our bonds in London sold 
for twenty per cent less than the English, although the interest 
on ours was double that on theirs. He showed that the same 
was true of the bonds of Massachusetts, which sold higher in 
London than those of our Government. This difi'erence, he 
said, was due to the higher credit of England and Massachu- 
setts. The agitation of repudiation was producing this result 
and so our Government was already paying the penalty of 
this heresy. The remedy would be founcl in the prompt ful- 
filment of OUT contracts, as made, and the speedy return to 
specie payments. 

These questions entered into the campaign for the election 
of General Grant. The Republican platform of 1868 denounced 
all forms of repudiation and demanded the payment of the 
National debt, according to the letter and spirit of the laws 



QQg LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

under which it was contracted, but advocated a refunding of 
the bonds for a longer time and at a lower rate of interest. 
It pronounced for equal civil and political rights and guar- 
anteed suffrage to all loyal men at the South. The Demo- 
cratic convention nominated Seymour and Blair against Grant 
and Colfax, denounced the reconstruction measures of the 
Eepublicans and proposed the payment of the national debt 
in greenbacks. 

Sumner spoke twice only during the campaign. He was suf- 
fering from a stubborn affection of the throat and was coun- 
selled against all public speaking, by his physician. Once he 
spoke briefly at a flag raising of the Grant and Colfax Club, on 
September fourteenth, in the ward, in Boston, where he was 
born and had always voted. This was on Beacon Hill, the 
highest point in Boston, where in early days were lighted the 
beacon fires that flashed the news of danger over the surround- 
ing country. He prophesied that they were lighting there the 
fires of congratulation and of joy. Four years before, this had 
been counted a doubtful District. When the election was over, 
Sumner had telegraphed Lincoln that it had gone Republican 
by five thousand majority. It was the first word the President 
had of his re-election and when he received it, he remarked : " If 
this is a specimen of the doubtful Districts, what may we expect 
of the whole country ? " 

Sumner spoke again, on October twenty-ninth, at the City 
Hall, in Cambridge. The Massachusetts Eepublican Conven- 
tion, held at Worcester, September ninth, had indorsed him for 
re-election to the Senate. At the opening of his speech he 
therefore referred briefly to his own record of the preceding 
six years. It began, while the war was still in progress and 
saw its triumphant close, the abolition of slavery, the establish- 
ment of equal rights in the court-room and at the ballot-box 
and the acquisition of Alaska. In all these things he had 
borne his part in the Senate,— a part, he trusted, not unworthy 
of the commonwealth he represented. Upon his service he 
invited their scrutiny and candid judgment. He could not 
forget, he said, that there had been much clamor at two prop- 
ositions he had advocated ; first, the power of Congress over the 
States that had rebelled and abandoned their practical rela- 
tion with the Union; second, the necessity of securing to the 
freedmen their equal civil and political rights. _ All this con- 
tention he recognized as happily at an end, within the ranks of 
the Republican party, and was continued now only by those 
lately in rebellion and their sympathizers at the North. 

Though formal criticism of these things which he had ad- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 600 

vocated so early and vigoroiisly, had now disappeared, there 
was yet left an occasional warning against " men of one idea," 
with a finger point at himself. What duty, he demanded, had 
he failed to perform or what interest had he neglected? He 
had given warning early against an inconvertible currency and 
recently had urged a return to specie payments. With every 
form of the business of the Senate, with taxation, commerce or 
railroads, or the business of the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions, of which he was chairman, he had borne his part. But 
while doing this he had felt it to be his supreme duty to warn 
against the perils of slavery in all its forms and insist upon 
every guarantee against its re-establishment. In season and out 
of season, in the Senate and elsewhere, he had urged its aboli- 
tion and the destruction of its whole brood of inequalities. In 
such a cause he had felt that no one could do too much, no 
wisdom could be too great, no voice too eloquent, no courage 
too persevering. Who upon this question had been " practical ", 
he inquired, but the company of those who had been with him ? 
" Permit me to say," he added, " that the ' practical ' statesman 
foresees the future and provides for it. Wlioever does anything 
with his whole heart makes it for the time his ' one idea '. 
Every discoverer, every inventor, every poet, every artist, every 
orator, every general, every statesman is absorbed in his work ; 
and he succeeds Just in proportion as, for the time, it becomes 
his ' one idea '. The occasion must not be unworthy or petty ; 
but the more complete the self-dedication, the more effective is 
the result." Personally he felt he had nothing to regret, but 
his own inadequacy. He would have done more, if he could. 
His " idea " had been nothing less than his " country, with all 
that is contained in that inspiring word, and with the infinite 
vista of the same blessings for all mankind ". 

It is to be remembered in view of what follows in this narra- 
tive, that, in this speech, Sumner repeatedly spoke in the 
highest terms of General Grant as " an illustrious citizen " 
and " of unequal renown in the suppression of the Rebellion ", 
instancing his career as an example of " one idea " pursued to 
a triumphant end, when after planning his campaign, he an- 
nounced that he meant to " fight it out on this line, if it took 
all summer " and yet, with no occasion for reproach, except 
from rebels, who would have been glad to see him fail in that 
singleness of purpose, which gave him the victory. In the con- 
test which afterward arose between Sumner and Grant, over 
San Domingo, which led to the removal of Sumner from the 
Committee on Foreign Relations and his separation from his 



610 I^lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

party, this early and pronounced friendship becomes a land- 
mark from wdiich reckonings can be made. 

With all earnestness, Sumner urged his hearers to vote for 
the party, with Grant at its head, that had saved the Republic, 
and not hand the country over " to the rebels and their allies ". 
He declared that Blair, the Democratic candidate for Vice- 
President, in calling upon President Johnson to declare the 
reconstruction laws void and compel the army to undo their 
work and disperse the "carpet-bag" government, at the South, 
was guilty of greater nullification than that which had induced 
President Jackson to threaten to hang John C. Calhoun. The 
Democrats had declared that Congress liad no power to pass 
these laws. Sumner argued that Congress had this power, 
that these States were under the control of Congress, because 
they were without governments of their own and therefore of 
necessity, as in the case of Territories, it must take charge of 
them, because, having been conquered, the conqueror, accord- 
ing to the laws of war, has control of his conquests, because 
the constitutional amendment abolisliing slavery, gave Con- 
gress power to enforce tiiis abolition and because Congress was 
bound by the Constitution to guarantee to each State a repub- 
lican government. Hence he argued tliere could be no question 
of the power of Congress to pass these laws. 

Another objection, that was vigorously made by the Demo- 
crats to the Eeconstruction Laws, was that they had extended 
the right of suffrage to the freedmen. Sumner argued that 
this was only an act of justice to those who had aided to save 
the Republic, that while it was true that many of them could 
neither read nor write, yet it must be remembered that there 
were many other good citizens, whose only scliool had been the 
rough world, in whom character was developed to a remarkable 
degree, that you could not make men all equal in fact, that 
Charles James Fox, the great English statesman, had been 
driven to the poles to vote, only to find when he reached there 
that his coachman was voting the other way, when he had 
remonstrated with him for not telling him sooner so that they 
might have paired off, that though this incident showed an ap- 
parent equality between the men it was not so in reality, for 
this brilliant leader had influenced multitudes of his fellow- 
citizens by his example. The ordinary man had nothing but 
his vote to counterbalance the vote of the statesman. He 
should not be deprived of that. He had nothing to counter- 
balance this influence. The ballot was necessary, he insisted, 
to prevent a revival of slavery, in new forms, by hostile legis- 
lation, in the Southern States, and to ward off the threatened 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 611 

violence, assassination and barbarism of the Ku-Kliix-Klan. 
To repeal the Eeconstruction Laws woiikl mean to break down 
the barriers of protection thrown around the loyal people of 
the South. 

The other issues that were discussed in the campaign grew 
out of the bonds. Sumner reiterated his warning against the 
taxation of the bonds, in violation of the contract when the 
money was lent, and against the payment of the interest in 
greenbacks. Taxation would mean a confiscation of the addi- 
tional price paid for the bonds, on the faith that they were not 
taxable. The bondholders had trusted to the faith of the nation 
in the payment of this price. He reminded them of the ex- 
clamation of Charles James Fox to the proposal of a kindred 
breach of national faith : " Oh, no, no, no ! His claims are 
doubly binding who trusts to the rectitude of another ! " To 
pay the interest in greenbacks would be ruinous to the national 
credit. The greenbacks were not payment; they were simply 
promises to pay. If nobody had breathed such a proposition 
the nation would have been richer, for the bonds could then 
have been paid, by the issue of others with a longer time to run 
and at a lower rate of interest. " Here," he said, " was an 
annual tax of millions imposed by these praters of repudiation." 
Sumner again insisted upon the resumption of specie pay- 
ments. He proposed the fourth of July of the following year, 
as the date to resume. It was destined to come ten years later 
and to the great benefit of the country. But to have brought it 
about so soon as Sumner suggested would probably have caused 
a serious financial disturbance. 

The result of the election was, upon the electoral vote, over- 
whelmingly for the Republicans. But to a more careful ob- 
server, looking behind this vote, there were many causes for 
serious reflection. New York, New Jersey and Oregon had 
gone Democratic. California was Eepublican by a majority of 
five hundred and fourteen ; Indiana was correspondingly close ; 
tlie majorities in Ohio and Pennsylvania were greatly reduced. 
Six of the reconstructed Southern States — North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Florida — 
saved the election to the Eepublicans. If the South had been 
solid, as it has been so often since, Grant would have been de- 
feated. Evidence of shameless frauds and violence, in Louis- 
iana, was abundant and there was similar evidence concerning 
Georgia. Both had gone Democratic. Grant's election being 
assured, no investigation was made by Congress. It was un- 
fortunate tliat this was not done with promptness and thor- 
oughness, and the vote of Louisiana, where the evidence was 



gX2 LIFE OF CHARLEti SUMNER 

overwhelming, rejected. If this had been done and the leaders 
vigorously punished, an infinite amount of trouble later would 
have been saved and the credit of the nation upheld. Sumner 
believed that it should not be thus lightly passed over, and 
voted for a resolution introduced by Morton of Indiana, mak- 
ing a record of the Senate's knowledge of these frauds. But 
the resolution was defeated. 

One result of the election was the return of Sumner to the 
Senate, for another term of six years. His election took place 
in the Legislature of Massachusetts, on the nineteenth day of 
January, 1869. It was destined to be his last. The unanimity 
of the choice was unusual. He received in the Senate every 
vote, save two, and in the House two hundred and sixteen, out 
of two hundred and thirty-two votes. Henceforth he was to 
be the senior Senator, in continuous service. Since the first 
inauguration of Lincoln he had been the most widely known 
and most conspicuous man in the Senate. 

Much credit is due to the great State that had thus long and 
thus unitedly sustained him. Those nearest to him knew with 
what toil he had deserved it. The Duchess of Argyll, shortly 
after this time wrote from England : " Is not what Dr. 
Chalmers called your ' Sabbath of Life ' come when you feel 
that you may give up the strife of politics and have time for 
still better things? It has been a very full day of work, and I 
wish you may see when resting time comes. God bless that 
evening, and give hope of a glad morning ! " Alas, his " Sab- 
bath of Life " never came ! It was the full day's work to the 
end. But was there not with it the hope of a glad morning? 

Sumner was in Washington at the time of the inauguration 
of General Grant. The inaugural address was brief and 
characteristic. It was very emphatic, on the two questions that 
had been most discussed in the campaign, repudiation and 
suffrage. He urged the exclusion of every repudiator from 
public place as a means of strengthening the public credit; and 
the settlement of the suffrage question, likely to be agitated so 
long as a portion of the citizens was excluded from the fran- 
chise in any State, by the ratification of the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution. The declaration, in his inaugural, 
of most interest to us, in the light of the President's subsequent 
contest with Sumner over San Domingo, was, that on all sub- 
jects he should have " a policy to recommend, but none to en- 
force against the will of the people ". He probably meant this 
statement in all candor, but in reference to the course that had 
been pursued by President Johnson, which had rendered his 
" policy " so obnoxious, as to be still fresh in the public recol- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 613 

lection. It was so fresh also in the recollection of General 
Grant, by reason of Johnson's effort to place him in a false light, 
in connection with the removal of Secretary Stanton that, con- 
trary to the almost uniform custom since the foundation of the 
Eepublic, he would not recognize Johnson officially, by driving 
to the Inauguration service with him from the \Yhite House. 

On the evening of the Inauguration, three men dined together 
at Sumner's Jioiise in Washington. At the time they were fast 
friends of long standing and of similar tastes. All were men 
of culture, scholarly, fond of each other's society, and of the 
pleasures of good cheer; and all were destined to a permanent 
place in their country's histor3\ All of 'them were friends of 
the administration just inaugurated and looked forward, with 
bright anticipations, to the realization of the best hopes of the 
Eepublicans. These three men were destined soon to play prin- 
cipal parts, in one of the most heated contests of Grant's ad- 
ministration. They were Sumner, John Lothrop Motley, the 
historian, and Hamilton Fish, soon to become Grant's Secretary 
of State. Little did they then think, as the pleasant com- 
munion passed from lip to lip, at this hospitable board, that one 
of them, doing the will of his chief, would soon become the 
instrument to drive both the others from coveted places, in their 
country's service, estrange them from their party and leave 
sores that never were healed. 

Fish did not then know that he was to be a member of Grant's 
Cabinet. At this time, the President's plans were otherwise. 
He had nominated Alexander T. Stewart, a wealthy merchant 
of Kew York City, for Secretary of the Treasury, If he had 
received this place, it would, according to custom, have pre- 
vented the appointment of any other Cabinet officer from the 
State of New York. But an old act of Congress forbade the 
appointment of any one interested in the carrying business of 
trade or commerce, to the position of Secretary of the Treasury, 
This law disqualified Stewart. The President did not know 
of the law, wlien this nomination was made, though its viola- 
tion was punishable by a fine of three thousand dollars and 
removal from office and disqualification, thereafter, from hold- 
ing any position under the Government. The position was an 
embarrassing one. When it was brought to his attention, the 
President frankly admitted his ignorance of the law, but being 
very desirous to have Mr. Stewart in his Cabinet he asked that 
the law be changed so as to allow him to take the place. Sher- 
man asked unanimous consent of the Senate to introduce such 
a bill, but Sumner's voice promptly arrested the measure. He 
suggested that such a step ought to be carefully considered be- 



G14 LJFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

fore it was taken. The bill was not called np again, a private 
canvass having disclosed that the Senators upon reflection, 
were generally against it. The President then withdrew the 
appointment and nominated George S. Boutwell of Massa- 
chusetts. 

The President at the commencement of his administration 
had sent to the Senate the name of Elihu B. Washburn for Sec- 
retary of State. For sixteen years, he had represented in Con- 
gress the Galena district of Illinois. At the opening of the 
war Grant resided in this district and Washburn ever since had 
been his faithful friend. Upon the failure of the President to 
secure A. T. Stewart of N'ew York for his Secretary of the 
Treasury, Mr. Washburn resigned and was appointed Minister to 
France and Hamilton Fish was appointed Secretary of State. 
He was the only member of Grant's Cabinet, appointed at this 
time, that continued with him to the end of his administration. 
Cabinet changes during his Presidency were frequent. The 
President himself, with his strong personality, was the domi- 
nating spirit of his administration and a man of like character 
was not continued long in his official family. Fish was not of 
this disposition. 

He was a member of one of the old Knickerbocker families 
of New York City. He had inherited large wealth as well as a 
companionable disposition. He was singularly fortunate in his 
marriage to a refined and intelligent lady, who united with 
him in making their home one of elegant hospitality. He had 
served in both Houses of the New York Legislature, a term 
in each House of Congress and one as Governor of New York. 
His career in these offices had not been distinguished, but was 
characterized by good sense and the genial character of the 
man. 

He entered the Senate the same day Sumner did and they were 
soon warm friends. Without a home of his own, the refined 
hospitality dispensed at that of Fish, where he was always, till 
this time, a welcome guest, appealed strongly to Sumner. No- 
where in Washington was he entertained so often or with so 
much cordiality. After Fish's retirement from the Senate 
this intimacy continued at his homes in New York and on the 
Hudson ; and while Sumner was in Europe, in search of health 
after the Brooks assault, he saw much of them in Paris, where 
their daughters were in school. During all these years, fre- 
quent and cordial letters passed between him and Mr. and Mrs. 
Fish and their children, and kindly messages were exchanged 
upon interesting changes in their family. When the Fishes 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER C15 

went to Europe, in 1858, they carried letters from Sumner to 
some of his European friends, a favor he rarely granted. 

After his retirement from the Senate, in 1857, until called 
to the Cahinet in 18(39, Fish held no public office and, with the 
facility of his disposition, seemed to have little interest, in the 
important events that were transpiring in the political world. 
His hospitality, extended to General Grant, in New York, had 
brought them together and led to his selection for the Cabinet. 
He was then sixty years of age and accepted and, for the first 
year, retained the office, with some reluctance. Thereafter 
the place became more congenial to him. His appointment was 
very agreeable to Sumner. Fish relied upon Sumner to counsel 
him about appointments and questions of difficulty, arising in 
the Department, and even sent copies of dispatches from our 
Ministers to him, when in Boston, so that he might have the 
benefit of his aclvice. This unusually cordial relation con- 
tinued, until the San Domingo controversy arose. 

The other guest at Sumner's table the evening of the Inaug- 
uration, John Lothrop Motley, was a native of Dorchester, 
Massachusetts, now a part of Boston. He graduated at Har- 
vard, in the same class with Sumner's eloquent co-laborer in the 
anti-slavery cause, Wendell Phillips. It was the class follow- 
ing Sumner's. Motley studied law and was admitted to the 
Massachusetts bar, practised for some time in Boston and was 
elected a Member of the Massachnsetts Legislature, in 1849. 
His wife was a sister of Park Benjamin, with whom and 
another sister, she made her home in Boston, prior to her mar- 
riage. Sumner was, at the time, a frequent caller, at their 
house. Inspired with the purpose of writing his Netherland 
histories, IMotley went to Europe in 1851, where the balance of 
his life was mostly spent. His history of the Rise of the Dutch 
Republic was published in London, in 185G, and it immediately 
raised liim to fame and popularity in England. He was in 
London during the seasons of 1858, 1859 and 18G0 and was 
much sought for, and was entertained by the best society. 
Realizing the want of knowledge, in England, of the real causes 
of our troubles, at the opening of hostilities, he wrote a letter to 
the London Times, afterwards singularly influential as a 
pamphlet, explaining clearly and elaborately the nature of the 
Union and the causes of the war. 

He was made Minister to Austria, by President Lincoln, in 
18G1, and he continued tliere till 1807, occupying himself large- 
ly, with promoting a right knowledge, in Europe, of American 
conditions and the aims of the Union party. He was recalled 
by President Johnson and returning to the United States, he 



61G LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

took part in the campaign for the election of Grant. A bril- 
liant speech for the Republican cause, by the historian of 
William the Silent, describing the candidates and urging 
Grant's election, appealed strongly to him. Motley met Grant 
frequently afterwards, when a genial cigar together cemented a 
pleasant acquaintance and prepossessed Grant in his favor. 
Fish also had met him in New York, liked him and had intro- 
duced him on the occasion of a lecture. The influential parties 
were thus prepossessed in his favor, when Sumner recommended 
him for Minister to England. He received the appointment on 
April twelfth, a month after Fish entered the State Depart- 
ment. Sumner's especial desire in the distribution of the 
Foreign Missions was to get that to Greece for his friend Dr. 
Samuel G. Howe of Boston. The President wished to appoint 
Motley and he, being credited to Boston, naturally barred Howe. 



CHAPTER XXXA^II 

EULOGIES ON THADDEUS STEVENS AND WM. P. FESSENDEN — AN 
EDITION OF HIS WORKS — CHANGES IN THE NATURALIZA- 
TION LAWS — EQUAL BIGHTS — RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETED 

At the openiug of Congress, in December, 1868, one Mem- 
ber was wanting, who had been a familiar figure there since 
Sumner's first entrance to the Senate. This was Thaddeus 
Stevens. He was born in Vermont, but had entered the House, 
in 1848, from Pennsylvania, where he had already distinguished 
himself, as a lawyer, and by a long service in the Legislature. 
He had advocated an efficient system of common schools, with 
such success that Sumner declared there was not a child in 
Pennsylvania " conning a spelling-book beneath the rafters 
of a village school, who did not owe him gratitude ". He was 
early known, in the House, as a pronounced enemy of slavery 
and a bold advocate of equal rights. For vigorous and trench- 
ant oratory he had few equals. " Speech was with him at 
times a cat-o-nine tails and woe to the victim on whom the 
terrible lash descended." He was not less distinctly a man of 
action, fearless and uncompromising in his fight for equal 
rights, and he fought slavery to its death. But when the fight 
was over, when slavery was abolished and equal suffrage secured, 
worn out by his tremendous efforts, " he laid down his load of 
work and disease to put on immortality." Sumner commem- 
orated him in the Senate at the memorial service, emphasizing 
the heroic qualities of the man. In fearless, direct and vigorous 
advocacy, of what both believed was right, there was much in 
common between them. 

Sumner was soon called to perform the same office for one 
of his colleagues. Senator William Pitt Fessenden took part 
in the first session of Congress under President Grant, but it 
was his last public service. He died on the eighth day of Sep- 
tember, 1869. He had been another of Sumner's early co- 
laborers in the anti-slavery cause. When he entered the Senate, 
in 1855, it was during the struggle over the Kansas-iSTebraska 
Bill. In the Senate there were just fourteen members, who 
stood for freedom, while thirty-seven were ready to repeal the 
Compromise that stood as a time-honored landmark, and to 
open that vast region to slavery. His coming seemed like 
617 



618 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

a reinforcement on the field of battle. The friends of free- 
dom were no longer fourteen, but fifteen. Coming from the 
other House, he was armed at all points for the fight. He at 
once took part in the debate where his directness and his quick- 
ness at repartee were soon apparent. A threat of secession, by a 
Southerner, while he was speaking, met the prompt response: 
" Do not delay it on my account ; do not delay it on account 
of anybody at the North ". Others still interrupted, only to be 
worsted. " The effect," Sumner declared, " was electric "... 
He added, " The ' Globe ' could not picture the exciting scene, 
— the Senator from Maine erect, firm, immovable as a jutting 
promontory against which the waves of Ocean tossed and broke 
in dissolving spray. Thei*e he stood. Not a Senator, loving 
Freedom, who did not feel on that day that a champion had 
come." The place Fessenden took in the Senate that day, he 
maintained to the end. No one in the Senate could match him 
for directness of argument, " for immediate and incisive reply." 
" He shot flying," said Sumner, " and with unerring aim." 

Sunmer contrasted the Senate as it was in the early days of 
the Eepublic. It was then described, as the only assembly in 
the Union, where eloquence was obtrusive and every one de- 
livered his opinion concisely — one leg over the other — where 
speech was- for business and immediate effect. Under the trans- 
forming influence of such men, it had become a centre from 
which to address the country. " A seat here," Sumner de- 
clared, " is a lofty pulpit with a mighty sounding board and the 
whole, wide-spread people is the congregation." 

Sumner spoke of Fessenden's integrity, his fidelity, his con- 
stant watchfulness of the public interest. He dwelt on his serv- 
ices as chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate 
during the war, when immense sums were being appropriated 
and the receipts and expenditures were both then under its 
control and yet, so closely was the Treasury watched by him, 
that nothing was added to or taken from it, without his knowl- 
edge. " All," he said, " that our best generals were in arms, he 
Avas in the financial field." 

Sumner and Fessenden had not been warm friends. Each 
appreciated the other, each supported the same party and the 
same measures. But both were leaders and sharp encounters 
sometimes took place between them. As Sumner suggested, 
"men are tempted by the talent they possess." Fessenden 
" once engaged, yielded to the excitement of the moment and 
the joy of conflict " and sometimes, perhaps, said more than 
he intended. " His words warmed, as the Olympic wlieel 
caught fire in the swiftness of the race," But Sumner added. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER C19 

" if on these occasions there were sparkles which fell where 
they should not have fallen, they cannot be remembered now." 

It was a generous eulogy. Sumner was at his best. And Fes- 
senden's friends were grateful in their acknowledgments of it. 
Little did either then realize what a loss Sumner had sustained 
in Fessenden's death. In the struggles which followed with 
Grant, Fessenden's strong sense of justice, his independence, his 
liigh appreciation of Sumner's abilities, would have interposed 
to prevent him being driven, from the Chairmanship of the 
Committee on Foreign Relations, by a mere gust of temper on 
t]ie part of those in authority. It was felt that Fessenden's 
influence in the Senate, was sufficient to have prevented it, if 
he had lived. 

But the Senate was changing. Sumner's old colleagues were 
passing away. The position of senior Senator in continuous 
service which he now held brought many reflections with it. He 
Avas not yet old in years — only fifty-seven. His mother had 
lived to be eighty-one; his father was sixty-three when he died. 
"With Sumner's splendid physical endowment, much like his 
mother's, he might have hoped, under other circumstances, that 
his life would be continued to a good old age. But his days had 
been passed too much in the storm and stress of the most ex- 
citing period of American history. The toil, and suffering, 
both physical and mental, that he had endured, were telling 
upon him. He felt old age creeping on and realized that lie 
must be putting his house in order. With the system that had 
characterized his whole life, he set about it. 

In 1869, he commenced the publication of a complete edition 
of his works. He had contemplated such an edition for several 
years. There had been a collection of his earlier speeches pub- 
lished and generally sold, but this was exhausted and his friends 
urged him to issue a new and complete one. There was a 
demand frequently for copies of his speeches which were out 
of print and could not be furnished. Many of them had been 
prepared with great labor and embodied the result of much care- 
ful research. They had been received, at the time of their de- 
livery, in terms of high commendation, by the press and by 
prominent men and were regarded as having a permanent value 
for the matter which they contained as well as for the finished 
form in which they appeared. They contained the thought of 
one of the chief actors, in a most important period of history. 
They were specimens of eloquence that were hardly surpassed in 
the English language for beauty of expression and permanent 
effect, some of them being inseparably connected with the fall 
of slavery, as the speech which preceded the assault by Brooks. 



(520 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

A right understanding of ttie assault could not be had without 
reading the speech and yet that assault made a permanent im- 
pression upon the country. Sumner's own fame as one of the 
first orators of his country had become widely extended and he 
naturally felt an interest in perpetuating it, by leaving these 
speeches in such form as would render them accessible to future 
generations. 

He wrote his friend. Dr. Samuel G. Howe : " Latterly I have 
been led to think more than ever of the uncertainty of life. 
Perhaps the little interest I have in it has made me notice 
symptoms that in a gayer mood I might have neglected. Suf- 
fice it to say that I have now but one solicitude, — it is to print 
a revised edition of my speeches before I die. If this were 
done I should be ready to go. These speeches are my life. As 
a connected series they will illustrate tlie progress of the great 
battle with slavery, and what I have done in it. I hope it 
is not unpardonable in me to desire to see them together, 
especially as I have nothing else." 

To accomplish this work in the manner proposed made it 
no slight task for one of Sumner's years. His model was the 
American edition of Burke's works; but it was to be more 
elaborately done. The speeches were to have an accurate in- 
troduction explaining the circumstances under which the speech 
was delivered, and the occasion of it. The text of the speech 
was to be carefully corrected, if need be, the language changed 
to convey the thought more clearly, and notes added, so as to 
give the authorities relied on ; and the whole followed by an 
appendix, explaining circumstances which followed the speech, 
perhaps the farther debate and vote, quoting the press com- 
ments and his correspondence upon it. As he was accustomed 
to frank copies of his speeches after delivery, to the press and 
his friends, naturally the comments and correspondence were 
of some length. In some instances, this introduction and 
the appendix of a speech would occupy, as in that preceding 
the Brooks assault, more than a hundred pages of closely 
printed matter. The care with which it was done and the 
research required, tempted him to great labor, to give the 
edition the finished form he desired. When he had completed 
the first two volumes, he wrote Longfellow, it would have been 
as easy to re-write the speeches as to edit them. The purpose 
was to include the whole in eight volumes, the set to be com- 
pleted in one or two more, containing a biography, written by 
another. But it far exceeded this, running to fifteen volumes 
of about five hundred pages each, without the biography. He 
did not live to see it completed. It was a greater work than he 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 631 

anticipated, requiring time that at his age should have been 
given to rest, overtaxing his strength and troubling the last 
hours of his life. The part of the work up to the four hun- 
dredth and sixty-seventh page of the tenth volume and the 
monograph, " Prophetic voices concerning America " contained 
in the twelfth, which he was preparing for separate publica- 
tion, were completed under his direction. He also furnished 
notes for the eleventh volume. But the remaining work was 
done under the direction of his executors. The first volume 
came from the press, in 1870 ; the last, not until 1883. 

This work, while too large for a popular edition and contain- 
ing much of little interest to the general reader, is of great 
value to one who wishes to make a careful study of Sumner's 
life. The introductions and appendices and the notes to the 
speeches, especially in the volumes prepared under Sumner's 
own eye, are of great value and show in small compass and 
with great accuracy his part in the affairs to which the speeches 
relate. 

The expense connected with the work was considerable. An 
accomplished proof-reader was engaged, who made verbal criti- 
cisms, verified the notes and carried the volumes through the 
press. No expense was spared to make the work as nearly 
perfect as it could be. Sumner assumed the financial re- 
sponsibility for it and he, and his executors after his death, 
secured the copyrights. The publishing was by Lee and Shep- 
ard of Boston and, in printing and binding as well as mate- 
rial, the work is a model of excellence. It was sold by sub- 
scription. A special edition, each set containing the autograph 
of Sumner, was sold at an advanced price, mostly to his per- 
sonal friends ; the last volume of the work contains the names 
of the subscribers to this autograph edition. But the burden 
of expense was felt by Sumner. At times he thought of giving 
up his house in Washington, to reduce his expenditures, so as 
to devote his means to this object, but this had become such a 
source of comfort, at his time of life, for one in his position 
and he felt the need of it so much, that he could not make the 
sacrifice. The work was a considerable drain upon his moder- 
ate estate. 

To raise the funds to meet these expenses of house and 
" works " he continued his expedient of lecturing, during the 
recesses of Congress. In the summer of ISfiO, he prepared a 
lecture on " The Question of Caste " which he delivered first 
in Boston on October twenty-first and subsequently at numer- 
ous places, in New England, and in the States of Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Delaware and New York. The lecture revealed 



622 I^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

his wealth of learning and customary care in preparation and 
gave many historical illustrations of class distinctions, in the 
population of semi-civilized countries. He argued that caste, 
wherever it existed, was a relic of barbarism and should 
be abolished. He had now advanced to this position, in the 
Senate, in the treatment of the rights of the f recdmen and was 
insisting upon the absolute civil and political equality of all 
men. He had spoken on the subject, at the previous session, 
when the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was under 
consideration and had offered a substitute for it, which he be- 
lieved would more effectually promote this purpose, by adding 
some criminal penalties to the denial of the right to vote or 
hold office under the pretence of race or color. This substitute, 
however, was rejected. Ilis purpose in the lecture, aside from 
financial gain, was to create and develop a sentiment in favor 
of equal rights. Nothing, he argued, could ever be settled, that 
was not right, and there could be no settlement of this ques- 
tion except in harmony with the principles he advocated. '" As 
all rivers are lost in the sea, which shows no sign of their 
presence " so, he insisted, must all nationalities, English, Ger- 
man, African or Chinese, within the confines of our Eepublic 
be lost in one harmonious citizenship, where all are equal in 
rights. 

In Congress, Sumner sought to have the naturalization laws 
amended by striking out the word " white ", wherever it oc- 
curred, so that in the admission of foreign born persons to our 
citizenship, there should be no distinction of race or color. The 
bill he introduced for this purpose, was referred to the Judi- 
ciary Committee, where it remained until near the end of the 
session, when it was reported adversely. In March, 1869, he in- 
troduced it again. The committee again retained it, this time 
for more than a year, when it was reported favorably. On the 
second and fourth days of July, 1870, he spoke upon it and 
advocated its passage. He was opposed by some Republicans, 
who asked him not to press it to a vote, because they did not 
Avish to go on record as voting for or against it. But he re- 
minded them of other days, when he had been asked not to 
press questions to a vote. He insisted now, as then, that the 
question should be settled justly and it would be settled finally 
that from 1867 till now, he was unable to have a vote upon it 
and when at last he had reached a vote he was asked to post- 
pone it to some " to-morrow ". With some impatience he ex- 
claimed : 

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow 
Creeps in this petty pare from day to day. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 623 

To the last syllable of recorded time; 
And all our j-esterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death." 

I will not postpone this question to any ' to-morrow ' ! " 

His bill was also opposed by some Senators who lived on the 
Pacific coast, because it would admit the Chinese to citizenship. 
But he still answered that his bill only dealt justly with all 
men, negro as well as Chinese. His amendment, however, was 
rejected ; a motion to reconsider the vote carried, but it was re- 
jected again. An amendment was then offered to extend the 
naturalization laws to aliens of African nativity and to persons 
of African descent; and it carried, Sumner voting for it, al- 
though he believed the exclusion of the Chinese to be unjust. 

On the eighth of April, 1870, in reply to an invitation to be 
present at the last meeting of the American Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety, which proposed to disband considering its work as finished, 
after having secured the abolition of slavery and equal rights at 
the ballot-box, he declared that he could not consider the work 
as finished, so long as the word "white" was allowed to play 
any part in legislation or rule public conveyances or bar the 
doors of hotels, or houses of amusement or schools, that the 
complete equality of all, before the law, must first be secured. 
He was opposed to class disabilities. 

At the same time he urged that there should be no exclusion 
of retired army officers from civil office. He argued that the 
half pay they enjoyed must be considered as a pension and not 
as pay for employment, that it was unfair to these men, having 
no work, to be excluded from the civil service, if qualified. 

Another instance of Sumner's devotion to these principles 
occurred at about this time. It illustrates his courage in main- 
taining a position that he believed to be right in the face of an 
adverse majority and a misguided public sentiment. There 
had been some disagreement between our government and 
foreign nations as to the right of the citizens of these nations 
to dissolve their relations with them and become naturalized 
citizens of our country. Some of these naturalized citizens 
upon returning to their native countries were arrested and 
held, for a compliance with their laws of citizenship. To 
remedy this evil a bill was passed by the House fixing the right 
of foreign born persons to dissolve their relation to their mother 
countries and become naturalized citizens of ours. But to this 
very proper provision it was added, that if it became known to 
the President, that any of these naturalized citizens were ar- 
rested and detained, by any foreign government, in contra- 



(]04 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

veiition of our laws, and their release was unreasonably de- 
layed, the President was authorized to retaliate by suspending 
commercial relations with the foreign government, thus offend- 
ing, or to arrest and detain in custody any subject of that 
government, found within our country except ambassadors and 
other public ministers and their domestics. 

Xo one questioned the right of our government to maintain 
that a foreign subject could thus dissolve his relation to his 
mother country and become a citizen of ours. Both the polit- 
ical parties had recognized it, in their platforms. England and 
Germany were recognizing it abroad. But the proposed 
remedy, by the suspension of commerce or the arrest of foreign 
citizens here, was monstrous. Yet a bill with these provisions 
in it passed the House, under pressure of the Fenian move- 
ment. The wrongfulness of it was pointed out, but the flexibil- 
ity of the Members appeared when, for fear of offending this 
element of our citizens, one hundred and four voted for it and 
only four against it ; seventy-nine did not vote. Some Members 
voted for it, though opposed to it, trusting that it would be 
killed in the Senate. When one of these was asked how he 
could vote for such a monstrous proposition, he answered : " It 
was of no account; I knew Sumner would put his foot on it." 

He did put his foot on it, but their conduct was none the 
less discreditable. In the Senate it was referred to the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, of which he was Chairman. IvTot- 
withstanding a pressure to have it reported earlier, he held it 
there for two months to allow time for reflection, and then 
reported the bill, with an amendment leaving out the clause, 
authorizing the suspension of commercial relations and re- 
prisals on private persons, and substituting for it a clause mak- 
ing it the duty of the President to report to Congress the cir- 
cumstances of the arrest of our citizens and any proceedings 
for their release, so that Congress could take prompt action to 
secure to everyone his just rights. Every member of his 
Committee concurred in this report. 

In the Senate, Sumner declared that by the law of nations, 
private individuals could not be held responsible for the act of 
their government and that this provision against them meant, 
that Charles Dickens, or Anthony Trollope, or Eev. Newman 
Hall, trustful travellers and honored guests in our country, 
might be seized and imprisoned at the nod of the President, to 
the great shame of the country. It would make good men 
liable to suffer for acts, in which they took no part, and he 
could liken it to nothing better, than " the revival of the 
Priigel-knabe, who was kept at the German courts of former 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 625 

3, to receive the stripes which the prince had merited for 
his misdeeds." 

The Senate rejected these retaliatory provisions, in the 
House bill, by a vote of thirty to seven. But a substitute was 
moved, for the provision iiiserted by Sumner's Committee, re- 
quiring the President, whenever one of our citizens was unjustly 
deprived of his liberty, to use such means, not amounting to 
acts of war, as he may think proper, to obtain his release. 
Sumner opposed this amendment as conferring too great power 
on the President. On the other side it was said, that " the law 
as proposed to be passed under the direction of the honorable 
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations amounts to 
nothing " and Conness of California charged Sumner with in- 
difference to the rights of foreign born citizens, except those 
of African descent. Sumner replied, calling his attention to 
the fact that when Know-Nothingism prevailed and enveloped 
Massachusetts, opposing the naturalization and adoption of 
foreigners as American citizens, he had gone down to Faneuil 
Hall and, in the presence of one of the largest audiences ever 
assembled there, demanded the same protection and privileges 
for everyone, Irish, German, African or Chinese as he did now. 
The substitute carried and the bill, as thus amended, passed. 
Sumner, however, voted against it, though urged for political 
reasons to support it. 

In the Senate on the twenty-first day of January, 1870, a 
controversy took place between Sumner and Trumbull of Il- 
linois over reconstruction. In the heat of it Trumbull ques- 
tioned Sumner's record on this question, taking him to task for 
his absence on the night of the passage of the Act of 1867, re- 
quiring equal suffrage as one of the conditions, when Sumner 
left the Chamber at midnight, before the vote was taken, but 
after the success of the measure was assured. It will be remem- 
bered that Sumner was the first to engraft equal suffrage for 
the colored race on that bill, as an essential condition of the 
return of the States in rebellion. Sumner took little notice of 
the thrust on that day. He did say: 

" I have no taste for controversy ; much rather would I give 
the little of strength that now remains for me to the direct 
advocacy of those great principles to which my life in humble 
measure has been dedicated, not forgetting any of my other 
duties as a Senator. If I have in any respect failed, I regret 
it. Let me' say in all simplicity, I have done much less than 
I wish I had. I have failed often, — oh, how often ! — when I 
wish I had prevailed. No one can regret it more than I. But 



G2G LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

I have been constant and earnest always. Such, God willing, 
such I mean to be to the end." 

This occurred when the admission of Virginia was under con- 
sideration. A few days later, when the admission of Mississippi 
Avas before the Senate, Stewart, of Nevada, returned to the 
subject, in an acrimonious speech, denying Sumner's author- 
ship of the provision for colored suffrage, in the Act of 1867. 
When he concluded Sumner, unwilling to remain silent longer, 
reviewed tlie record at some length, commencing as early as 
1862 and quoting, to show the different steps of the controversy 
and how constantly he had been in the front of the movement 
for equal suffrage. As the ground has already been gone over 
in these pages it is needless to review it again. 

Sherman of Ohio, who was a Senator during the whole time 
in question and an active participant in all this work, was 
somewhat impatient at the consumption of time over the ques- 
tion. He said that Sumner's record on it was made long before 
1867. " No man can deny," he added, " that from the first 
and I think the very first, he has advocated and maintained the 
necessity of giving to the colored people of the Southern States 
the right to vote * * * Early and late he has repeated to us 
the necessity of conferring suffrage upon the colored people 
of the South as the basis of reconstruction. I think, therefore, 
tliat he is justified in stating that he was the first to propose 
it in this body. * * * In my judgment it would be just as well 
for George Washington to defend himself against the charge 
of disloyalty to the American colonics, for whom he was fight- 
ing, as for the honorable Senator to defend his record on this 
question." 

This controversy grew out of the reconstruction of Virginia, 
Texas, Mississippi and Georgia. The first three of these States 
had never been admitted and additional conditions were now 
demanded. The depredations of the Ku Klux Klan and other 
acts of outrage, upon loyal citizens, were awaking many Repub- 
licans to a feeling that other guarantees should be required of 
them. Among these was Sumner, who iii-ged that the Senate 
should move slowly in the matter. Three Senators, Stewart, 
Trumbull and Carpenter, were for restoring them without re- 
quiring any conditions. A joint resolution was offered provid- 
ing for the admission of Virginia unconditionally, declaring 
she had complied with all the conditions of the Eeconstruction 
Acts. This was amended in the Senate by adding a requirement 
that Members of the Legislature and State officers of Virginia 
should take an oath of past loyalty or of the removal of their 
disabilities. Other amendments were added requiring for the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER G27 

colored people equality in suffrage, equality in eligibility to 
office, in school rights and privileges. Sumner strongly advo- 
cated all of them and he had with him the mass of the Repub- 
licans. But the three Senators named opposed them; and it 
was over them the clash occurred. Sumner voted for all the 
amendments^ but refused to vote for the resolution, though 
the amendments all carried. He believed that outrages in the 
South were becoming so frequent, that these States should, for 
a time, be continued under the control of Congress. But the 
resolution carried. Mississippi and Texas were admitted under 
the same conditions. 

The Representatives from Georgia had been admitted to the 
House in 1868. But before the Senators were admitted, her 
Legislature had expelled all its colored Members on the ground 
that they were disqualified and had admitted, to their places, 
white persons, whose disabilities were not yet removed. Other 
outrages were being committed there upon loyal citizens. It 
all resulted in the exclusion of her Senators and the expulsion 
of her Representatives from Congress. She was now seeking 
admission again and was the last State to receive it. A proviso 
was added in the House to the bill for her admission, making 
valid the title of her State officers to their offices. In the 
Senate this proviso was opposed by Sumner. She was finally 
required to readmit the colored Members to their seats in the 
Legislature and to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment to the 
Constitution before her admission. Hence her admission did 
not take place until July 15, 1870. This completed the re- 
construction of all the States which had been in rebellion. 

The proclamation of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment was issued on the thirtieth day of March, 1870. The 
Legislatures of the only States that refused to ratify it were 
under the absolute control of the Democrats and every member 
of that party in Congress refused to vote for it. But the req- 
uisite support was obtained without them. Thus equal suf- 
frage became a part of the fundamental law of the nation. On 
the evening of April first, a large crowd, after serenading the 
President and Vice-President, in honor of the event, went to 
the house of Sumner and he responded in a short speech, from 
his front door, in which he urged them to continue their efforts 
for equal rights until the word " white " was expunged from 
all our laws and the public schools were open to all alike. 

At this session of Congress Sumner introduced a resolution 
and supported it by a speech, asking the revocation of the 
charter of a medical society of the District of Columbia be- 



g38 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

cause it refused to admit colored physicians to its membership. 
But he was unable to secure action upon it. 

With the admission of Mississippi came questions as to the 
right of each of her Senators to a seat. Hiram E. Revels was 
a colored man, the first to ask admission to the Senate and, 
as if by a strange decree of Providence, who sometimes chooses 
the weak things of earth to confound the mighty, he came to 
occupy the seat made vacant by Jefferson Davis, who had 
abandoned it and became soon after the President of the Con- 
federacy. Adelbert Ames, the other, was an officer in the 
United States Army, in command of that State and its pro- 
visional Governor, a native of Maine and a graduate of West 
Point, who by brilliant service had won his star, before he was 
twenty-six years of age. He of course belonged to that class 
later known in the South as " carpet-baggers ". The only ob- 
jection made against him was that of non-residence. He was 
in the State, claimed it as his residence and resigned his posi- 
tion in the army to take his seat. Sumner spoke and voted in 
favor of both ; and both were seated. The objection made to the 
seating of Revels was solely on account of color. A Democratic 
member moved to refer his credentials to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, Sumner insisted that the argument of this question 
was past, that it had been fully discussed, that nothing more 
could be said upon it and it only remained to act, that no man 
acted for himself alone, that what he did, whether for good 
or evil, is felt in widening circles, according to the measure 
of his influence, that what the Senate did upon this question, 
would be by way of example to be followed by other bodies 
and associations throughout the country; it should be an ex- 
ample against tyranny and wrong and " for all everywhere who 
feel the blight of unjust power ". The motion to refer was de- 
feated by a vote of forty-eight to eight; and by the same vote 
he was seated. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

FINANCIAL MEASURES — ONE CENT POSTAGE — CHINESE INDEM- 
NITY FUND — CLAIMS AGAINST ENGLAND — IN HARMONY 
WITH grant's ADMINISTRATION 

The time of Congress during the years 1869 and 1870 was 
largely occupied with financial measures growing out of the 
war. There was much talk of damages done by our armies in 
the South and claims were made on behalf of persons, alleged 
to have been loyal, whose property had been destroyed in this 
way. Of course the claim of loyalty was hard to disprove, 
though in many cases it was gravely questioned. A sample of 
these claims was in that presented by Miss Sue Murphy of 
Decatur, Alabama. Her house was entirely destroyed under an 
order from General Sherman to make this place a military 
post. She claimed she had been loyal though residing in a 
Rebel State. The claim provoked discussion because it was 
one of a large class and if paid would open the door for many 
others. Sumner opposed its payment. He said it presented 
to him the single question whether the nation was bound to 
indemnify a citizen domiciled in a hostile state for property 
taken to build a fort against the Rebels. He insisted that the 
authorities upon this question from the law of nations were 
all_ against the payment of such a claim, that if this one were 
paid, claimants whose name would be legion, must be paid 
also and hence there was here a reason for caution. On his 
motion the bill to pay it was recommitted to the Committee on 
Claims. All of its class subsequently failed. 

The national debt was already very large and it was taxing 
the resources of the Government to keep the interest paid and 
the bonds provided for as they came due. There was a care- 
ful watch being kept that it should not be unwisely increased. 
Sumner was anxious to have it so adjusted as to be in process 
of extinction. He argued, however, that the preservation of 
the union was a work of such magnitude and of such impor- 
tance to future generations that the burden of it should not all 
be imposed upon the country at once. He was in favor of 
issuing new bonds payable in the future so that its payment 
should be gradual. On the twelfth day of January, 1870 he 
629 



630 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

introduced a bill for the purpose of refunding the debt, pro- 
viding for the issue of three classes of bonds, all redeemable in 
coin and exempt from taxation. There was to be $500,000,000. 
of each class and the first was to be redeemable in from ten to 
forty years, bearing interest at five per cent; the second re- 
deemable in from fifteen to fifty years, with interest at four and 
one-half per cent; and the third redeemable in twenty to sixty 
years, with interest at four per cent. The bill also provided 
for extending the amount of the issue of the circulating notes 
of the National banks from $300,000,000 to $500,000,000, the 
additional circulation to be distributed according to population 
among the States and Territories. And an equal amount of 
greenbacks was to be withdrawn. This additional circulation 
of the banks was to be secured by the four per cent bonds, re- 
deemable in from twenty to sixty years, deposited with the 
United States Treasurer, in the proportions of one hundred 
dollars of bonds for each eighty dollars of notes issued. 

The object of the bill was to retire bonds bearing a higher 
rate of interest so as in part to relieve the government of the 
enormous burden of accumulating interest and at the same time 
extend the time of payment of the debt, so that it would not all 
come due at once, but gradually and, if need be, at long in- 
tervals. It was not his expectation that it would all be paid by 
the generation that gave its blood so freely to put down the 
Eebellion, nor that it should be an irredeemable debt like the 
British consols. He would adhere to the definite payment of 
the debt and avoid the idea that it was to be permanent, but 
he would not require payment so soon as to embarrass our bus- 
iness interests. 

A further section provided for the resumption of specie pay- 
ments. When the premium on gold fell to, or within five per 
cent, the Secretary of the Treasury was to give notice that 
greenbacks would be received in payment of custom duties at 
par. 

Sumner spoke on the subject, between the twelfth day of 
January and the eleventh day of March, 1870. on six different 
occasions and showed a greater interest in the measure than 
any other Senator, save Sherman of Ohio, who was the Chair- 
man of the Committee on Finance. It was this Committee that 
had the bill in charge. Sumner in his speeches repeatedly 
urged the necessity of economy in the public expenditures so 
that payments might be made on the national debt and taxes 
likewise be reduced. 

He opposed the continuance of the income tax because the 
difficulties in the way of its fair assessment are not of a char- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER G31 

acter that can be overcome, though apparently equal, it being 
in operation most unequal and vexatious. He argued that it 
was inquisitorial, difficult of collection and fell with peculiar 
weight upon those who were disposed to act honestly. A good 
place for the reduction of taxes to begin, he believed, was in the 
abandonment of this altogether. It was only resorted to as a 
war measure. And the war, the occasion and the pretext of it, 
having ended, it should be abandoned at once. 

He also moved to abolish the tariff on books printed in for- 
eign or dead languages of which no editions were printed in the 
United States ; and, being voted down in this, he then moved to 
add to the free list books with illustrations relating to the 
sciences and the arts. But this also was voted down. He 
argued that our foreign population — German, Italian, Span- 
iard, Swede and Dane — when they came here to join their 
fortune with ours, should have the means of enjoying those 
innocent recreations that are found in reading works of liter- 
ature, or instruction which thousands of them would be 
glad to have. As to the books of sciences and the arts, many 
of them were too costly and the sale of them too limited to be 
reprinted and to deprive men of the use of them, by a heavy 
duty, was an outrage. It was often taxing the tools by which 
they lived. He was for free schools and free knowledge every- 
where. 

But while he urged economy and the reduction of expenses, 
there were certain measures advocated that he was unwilling 
to agree to, as either wise or politic. A bill was introduced to 
abolish the franking privilege whereby Senators and Members 
of Congress and other officials enjoyed the freedom of the mails 
for letters on official business, speeches, documents, pamphlets 
and seeds. He believed that this privilege brought the Govern- 
ment and people nearer together, than any government and 
people ever were before. It disseminated knowledge by means 
of these speeches and documents. When slavery was in exist- 
ence, this privilege had carried the arguments against it to the 
people and when the war broke out, it became the powerful ally 
of the national cause. He could not think it politic to dispense 
with it, without providing some substitute. He, therefore, in- 
troduced, as a substitute, a bill to reduce the rate of postage on 
letters to one cent and make a reduction of the rate on papers. 

He made an elaborate speech on the subject. It had been a 
favorite one with him. He had sought as early as March 
eighth, 1852, to secure a reduction on ocean postage and had 
supported a resolution of inquiry into the subject, by a brief 
speech calling attention to the extravagant rates charged. The 



633 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

rate had been subsequently reduced ; but he thought them still 
too high. On the seventh of December, 1868, he offered a reso- 
lution requesting the President to open negotiations with Eng- 
land, France and Germany for cheaper ocean postage. He 
believed on a letter of lialf an ounce weight the domestic postage 
should be one cent and the foreign should be three cents. The 
reduction on foreign letters has since been made. 

On the tenth of June, 1870, he spoke at length on the sub- 
ject of cheaper postage. The speech occupies sixty pages of his 
works and is an exhaustive historical review of the postal sys- 
tems of our own country and Great Britain. He believed that 
the reduction of the rates as he proposed would result in the 
increased use of the mails to such an extent that this would 
compensate for the loss of the higher rate, that where mail 
routes were established and the mail had to be carried the 
increased number of the letters carried added comparatively 
little to the cost of carriage. A reduction of the fee for admis- 
sion to the Tower of London in the ratio of four to one was fol- 
lowed by an increase of visitors, to this great national museum, 
in the ratio of more than eight to one. Another illustration 
that he gave was of a panorama in our country that at an en- 
trance fee of twenty-five cents did not pay expenses, but when 
the fee was reduced to ten cents the attendance was so much in- 
creased that it gave a profit of one hundred dollars a week. The 
purpose of his speech was to prove by the experience of England, 
whose letter postage was one penny, as well as by results shown 
by the reduction of rates, in the United States, that the in- 
creased use of the mails thus induced would make our postal 
system more profitable to the Government. 

But he reminded them that if there was a possible loss of 
revenue the post-office should not be viewed as " a taxing 
machine ", but as a beneficent agency and was to be used not 
to make money, but to promote the welfare of the people. 

" A letter," he said, " is simply conversation in writing and, 
therefore, by strictness of logic, the tax you impose is a tax on 
conversation. * * * Once at ]\rr. Webster's table I heard the 
question discussed, ' From what do men derive most of what 
they know ? ' The scholars about him answered, — one naming 
' Our Mothers ', another, ' Schools ', another ' Books ', another 
' Newspapers ', when the host, who had listened to each, re- 
marked, very gravely, ' You forget Conversation, from which, 
in my judgment, we derive the largest part of what we know.' " 
Sumner argued that conversation being a great educational 
agency should not be subject to a tax, nor should conversation 
in writing, in other words the letter; it should be as free as it 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 633 

can be made, consistent with the actual expense of carriage and 
delivery. 

Slavery, Sumner insisted, had always been the enemy of the 
postal service ; so long as it held sway, improvements could not 
be made; that one of the first legislative acts of the Confed- 
erate Government at Montgomery was to raise the rates of 
postage; that this department had received the care of anti- 
slavery men, before the war and now when they could, they 
should make it the best in the world, by carrying letters to 
every door at the smallest charge consistent with expense. He 
would make it an agency to promote the welfare of the people 
and increase their happiness, keeping these objects first and its 
earning capacity second. 

Among the matters of interest, relating to the Treasury, 
that came to Sumner's hands at this session was a balance of 
the Chinese Indemnity Fund. In 1858 the Chinese govern- 
ment had entered into a treaty with ours whereby it was to pay 
five hundred thousand taels or about seven hundred thousand 
dollars of our money to liquidate certain claims made by our 
citizens for damages done our shipping by the depredations of 
Chinese pirates, etc. The claims then made amounted to more 
than one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but it 
was believed they would be reduced, when an actual settlement 
of them came to be made. They were in fact so largely reduced 
by the authorities having the adjustment in charge, that about 
two hundred thousand dollars of the fund remained after the 
awards were satisfied. This fund had increased by investment, 
but otherwise it was in this condition ever since 1860. 

The successive Presidents had called the attention of Con- 
gress to it and asked action upon it, but none had been taken. 
Various suggestions had been made as to the disposition of the 
fund ; one was to build an American college with it, in Pekin, 
China, for the education of students of both nations, each in 
the language of the other ; another use suggested was to build 
an Embassy for the United States, at Pekin, our country 
having none there; still another was to return the money to 
China, although she was making no claim to it. The matter 
was referred to the Committee on Foreign Eelations on March 
tenth, 1870, and, with its customary promptness under Sum- 
ner's Chairmanship, it reported on June twenty-fourth follow- 
ing. The report was prepared by Sumner. 

It reviewed the origin and history of the fund. It had been 
invested in United States bonds and, with its accumulation, 
now amounted to three hundred and eighty-six thousand dol- 
lars. Sumner insisted that the fund had only been held by us ia 



634 ^1^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

trust, that in equity it belonged to China and should be re- 
turned to her and the report advised that this disposition be 
made of it. " Whatever may be our technical title ", the report 
tersely said, " in conscience the money is not ours ". It will be 
noticed how he brought measures to this test; in conscience, 
what is right? By its return, he urged, our country would 
perform an act of justice to China, though still unsought and 
relieve itself of a troublesome trust, which so long as it con- 
tinued, would be a bait to disappointed claimants, whose claims 
had been rejected by the proper authorities as not entitled to 
payment. 

But international claims of much greater importance un- 
expectedly came into prominence again about this time. These 
were our claims against England growing out of her conduct 
towards us during the war. They had been of absorbing in- 
terest since the early days of the war. It will be remembered 
that Sumner, in September, 1863, made an address on this 
subject at Cooper's Institute in New York City, at the invita- 
tion of the Young Men's Eepublican Club. Our Government 
had steadily protested, during the war, against the unfriendly 
course of England and it was determined that a reparation for 
her acts should be demanded of her, at the close of hostil- 
ities. Our Minister to Great Britain, Charles Francis Adams, 
had presented and argued the questions involved to the English 
Government, but it had refused to make any reparation or to 
agree to a reference of the controversy to any foreign State. 
At a later day a statement of the claims made by individuals 
for losses caused by the battleship Alabama, built and armored 
in England and manned by an English crew, but officered by 
Rebels, had been transmitted, by Secretary Seward, to Mr. 
Adams, and was presented by him to that Government, but 
it still declined to recognize them. Mr. Adams retired from 
the post of Minister to Great Britain, in May, 1868, with the 
respect of both nations, having faithfully represented his 
country upon this question, but without being able to effect a 
settlement or even get a proposition for a reference of it. 

He was succeeded in June, 1868, by Reverdy Johnson, a 
native of Maryland. After having established a brilliant repu- 
tation at the bar, Johnson, in 1845, became a United States 
Senator from his native State. He was appointed Attorney- 
General of the United States in 1849 and in 1863 was again 
returned to the Senate for a full term of six years. He was 
therefore a member of the Senate at the time of his appoint- 
ment. In the Impeachment proceedings, then just closed he 
had voted for the President's acquittal. He was a Democrat, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 635 

but one of the moderate school. At the time of the assault 
made by Brooks ou Sumner, though disapproving of Sumner's 
political opinions, he had expressed his sympathy for him 
and had condemned the assault. He was easy, affable and 
naturally courteous. He had been a Member of the Committee 
on Foreign Relations with Sumner for several years and, except 
ou party questions, they had uniformly harmonized. These 
traits gave him strength when his nomination was made. Few 
Democrats, especially of his age, for he was then in his seventy- 
third year, could have secured the ready confirmation he did, 
on the eve of a Presidential election, for a post requiring such 
talent for foreign diplomacy and knowledge of internafional 
law. Sumner favored rejecting the appointment, or any other 
the President would make, preferring to leave the embassy in 
charge of the Secretary of the Legation, for the short interval 
before a new administration would be inaugurated. But upon 
privately suggesting that course, he found his Republican col- 
leagues were disposed to give Johnson the compliment of the 
short service that remained. He, therefore, yielded to this 
preference of his colleagues and Johnson was unanimously con- 
firmed, Sumner feeling that if confirmed at all, it should be in 
such way that he would feel obliged to the Republicans. The 
evening after the confirmation Johnson called at Sumner's 
house and thanked him for the unanimity of the action of the 
Senate. 

It was not expected among the Senators that a settlement of 
the Alabama claims would be undertaken by the new Minister, 
but that he would take up the subjects of naturalization and 
the San Juan boundary about which there were disputes be- 
tween the two countries. But when Johnson reached England 
he promptly entered upon a negotiation for a settlement of the 
Alabama claims, w^ith Tx)rd Clarendon, the British Minister 
of Foreign Affairs. It was the evident wish of both our 
Minister and Secretary of State to add the settlement of this 
old and much-talked-of dispute to the accomplishments of 
President Johnson's administration. To facilitate its progress, 
much of the preliminary work was carried on between the 
Secretary and Minister by cable so that it was known the treaty 
was progressing under the immediate direction of Mr. Seward, 
As his work in the Department of State had been generally 
approved, much was hoped for the treaty, if it should reach 
completion. ISTo one was prepared for the disappointment and 
chagrin that was felt, when its terms became known. It was 
signed January fourteenth, 1S69, and reached this country the 
following month, only a few weeks before the expiration of the 



(33ti LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

President's term. It was at once transmitted to the Senate 
where it was referred to the Committee on Foreign Kehitions. 
It is known in history as the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, from 
the names of the two Ministers who negotiated it. 

There had been a feeling of exasperation at the course of 
England towards the jSTorth. Her indecent haste in according 
belligerent rights to the South in little more than one month 
after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the building of the 
pirate ships in her dockyards and permitting them to escape, 
manned with British seamen, to prey upon our merchant 
marine after our Minister had pointed out their character, the 
sale of guns and other munitions of war by her people to the 
Rebels, their subscription to the loans negotiated by the Con- 
federate Government to raise money to maintain the Rebellion, 
were all too well known to be soon forgotten. It was remem- 
bered, too, that some of the subscribers to the Confederate Loan 
stood high among British statesmen. Lord Robert Cecil, since 
Marquis of Salisbury and Premier of England, more than 
twenty of her Members of Parliament, and twice as many of her 
nobility. Many of these same men had established and become 
officers of an association to promote the cause of the Rebellion 
and supply it with funds. Harsh comments came from leading 
British statesmen upon the course of the North, with threats of 
intervention. The builder of the Alabama was cheered in Par- 
liament, when he declared that the institutions of the United 
States were of no value whatever and had " reduced the name 
of Liberty to an utter absurdity." Another Member, Roebuck, 
argued that it was not to England's interest to see the North 
triumph and declared : " As far as my influence goes I am 
determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the 
Union." These were not accidental expressions, but common, 
in that body, where more than half the Members were opea 
sympathizers with the South. Hardly less exasperating was 
England's tone of guardianship over the North as if she were 
the parent, responsible to the world for the acts of her child, 
to watch every movement, forbid what she disapproved and in- 
terfere to punish, if disobeyed. 

The extent of the injury was well known to the people of the 
North. There was no country where the masses understood so 
well questions of national interest. The common schools 
trained the youth, newspapers were cheap and everywhere read, 
the constantly recurring popular elections, at which all men 
voted, with the thorough discussion of the issues at stake, the 
habit of independent thought, which a century of self-govern- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER (j37 

ment had cultivated, all united to develop public interest in 
such a controversy. Its merits were well understc^d by the 
people, who had lately had many lessons of love ot country 
and devotion to the flag, and their sense of injury, when now 
in the flush of victory and with hands again free, was deep- 
seated and their resentment not easily concealed. There was 
a general expression of disappointment from them when the 
terms of this treaty became known. 

When it came to be considered in the Committee on Foreign 
Eelations every member was found to be against it. The report 
was not made for some weeks, but when presented it unani- 
mously recommended that the Senate reject the treaty. It 
became Sumner's duty, as Chairman of the Committee present- 
ing the report, to give the reasons which actuated them in 
making this recommendation. This he did, in a speech of an 
hour's length, on the thirteenth day of April, 1869. It was a 
careful review of the grounds of complaint against the treaty 
and of our claims on England. It was almost judicial in its 
tone, avoiding anything that would seem to savor of bitterness 
and aiming to present the facts in their true light. While 
realizing the great wrong that had been done by England, he 
still felt his early love for the people and country that had con- 
tributed much to his OMm happiness. He wished an honor- 
able settlement of our claims, but he would have been among 
the last to resort to war to secure it. He did not believe there 
would be any occasion for such a resort, but felt that if our 
wrongs were clearly understood, the well-known sense of justice 
of the English people would prevail to right them. He, there- 
fore, hoped by what he said to so reach the English people as to 
convince them of the rightfulness of our case, promote an 
adequate settlement, and thus remove all cause for bitterness 
and lead to a lasting peace. 

He said this was the first instance, since he came into the 
Senate, of a report recommending the summary rejection of a 
treaty. They had sometimes amended, sometimes reported 
without any recommendation, but never, so far as he could 
remember, had they asked a rejection. But the exceptional 
character of this treaty seemed to justify this report. He be- 
lieved, in the interest of peace, which all should desire, that 
it should be so treated. 

He called attention to the fact that the national claims were 
ignored entirely in it, no direct mention being made of the 
injury the Nation had suffered. This, he said, was a strange 
omission when it was remembered that the acts of England had 
given early encouragement and constant material support to 



G38 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the Rebellion, nerving the South to strike the blow and cheering 
her to continue the battle with the constant hope of interven- 
tion ; and yet the terms agreed upon were wide enough to for- 
ever bar a future recovery for the enormous expense caused by 
the prolongation of the war. There was not even a word of 
acknowledgment or of apology for this persistent course of 
wrongdoing. The whole case was here treated as one for 
private injuries to our citizens, as if claims of individuals were 
the only matters of damage in issue. 

The preamble of the treaty commenced with a recital that 
claims had been made by citizens of the United States on Great 
Britain and by subjects of Great Britain on the United States 
and some of such claims were still pending and unsettled, and 
the rulers of the two nations, believing that a settlement of them 
would contribute to the maintenance of friendly feelings, had 
sought to make this arrangement for such a settlement. Sum- 
ner suggested that there was nothing in this to give notice of 
the real question that had so deeply stirred the American people 
— the wrongs to our Nation. This only recited the wrongs of 
individnah. The body of the treaty provided for the trial of 
claims of individuals, by a commission to be created for that 
purpose. The treaty further provided that the result thus 
reached was to be ^' a full and final settlement of every claim 
upon either government arising out of any transaction of a date 
prior to the exchange of ratifications ". So that, as Sumner 
said, there was no provision for the settlement of the claim for 
natiotial damages and yet this serious matter in dispute was to 
be barred and forever disposed of by what was done as to 
individual claims. It was even insisted that among the iw- 
dividual claims to be presented by the subjects of Great Britain 
would be those of the holders of Confederate bonds in England. 

Sumner then passing from the treaty itself stated the claim 
of the United States. He insisted that the recognition of 
Rebels as belligerents, on land and on sea, was hasty and unfair, 
that belligerency must have an actual existence before, under 
the Law of Nations, it could be recognized and that the Rebels 
were not belligerents on the ocean at that time and never were 
afterwards, that they must have had power on the ocean, ships, 
a navy, and be prosecuting the war there and have prize courts 
for the adjudication of captures made on the high seas, before 
the right of ocean belligerency could be granted, that having 
none of these things, the grant was wrongful; that it was 
fraught with destructive consequences to the North, that with- 
out it no Rebel ship could have been built in England, because 
to do so v.'Ould have been piracy, that to furnish munitions of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER (539 

war, without it, would have been piracy, that to practise 
blockade running, without it, would have been piracy ; that the 
consequence of this act was to put the Eebels on an equality 
with us in the English markets; that pursuing this privilege, 
came the building of the Alabama at Liverpool, that as early as 
July, 1862, our Minister in London, Mr. Adams, had com- 
pleted the evidence of the purpose for which she was built and 
accompanying it with the legal opinion of an eminent English 
barrister declaring it to be their plain duty to stop her de- 
parture, it was forwarded to the proper officers and a remon- 
strance presented against permitting her to leave England, that 
five days later she was permitted to depart on her piratical 
mission; that other ships were built, for the same mission, 
among them ironclad rams, manned and armored in England, 
British in every respect except in their Commanders, who were 
Rebels, cheered by a British passenger ship upon the ocean, 
their builder cheered in Parliament, where he defended what he 
had done, permitted the freedom of British ports to obtain 
supplies, the Commander of one of them saved by a British 
yacht as his ship was sinking, after her destructive course was 
run, as if symbolizing the omnipresent support of England; 
that everywhere the course of these vessels was strewn with the 
wrecks of our commerce, entailing the loss of millions to our 
citizens and prolonging the war and requiring immense ex- 
penditures by our Government to destroy them; that the 
grant of these belligerent rights was aggravated by two cir- 
cumstances, first, that it was published on the very day our 
Minister arrived in England, after he had been announced and 
was daily expected, but without giving him a hearing, second, 
that it was an unnatural departure from the avowed anti- 
slavery creed of England, wherein she had announced her 
pledge to the Universal Abolition of Slavery, whereas she here 
took Rebel slave-holders by the hand, gave them official protec- 
tion and the God-speed of England, in their work of founding a 
slave oligarchy. 

In discussing the extent of our losses Sumner said those of 
individuals were determinable with reasonable accuracy, that 
ships burned and sunk with their cargoes could be estimated 
and the amount fixed, but the damages done by commerce being 
driven from the ocean and the injury caused by the prolonga- 
tion of the war, which were our national losses were difficult to 
fix and immeasurable in extent, that Mr. Cobden had estimated 
the losses from the capture and burning of American mer- 
cantile vessels at fifteen million dollars, but that this was a 
small part of it, that the rest of our vast mercantile shipping 



640 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

had been rendered for the time valueless, that during the 
decade from 1852 to 1862, the aggregate tonnage of American 
vessels entered at United States seaports was thirty million 
tons and the aggregate tonnage of foreign vessels was fourteen 
million tons, that in the five years from 1863 to 1868 the 
American tonnage entered was nine millions and the foreign 
fourteen millions, showing a reduction from two hundred and 
five to sixty-six per cent; that this loss must be largely attri- 
buted to British pirates and that to it must be added the further 
loss of our natural increase of tonnage; that there was more- 
over the loss caused by the prolongation of the war, that no 
candid person could deny that Rebellion was strengthened and 
prolonged by this aid, that it was encouraged by the conces- 
sion of belligerent rights on the ocean, fed by British supplies 
and flamed up anew with every burning vessel destroyed by 
war ships, whose base of supplies was not in America, but in 
England, so that Mr. Cobden had been able to say that Eng- 
land, from her shores, had made war on the United States and 
done her an amount of damage greater than would be pro- 
duced by many ordinary wars. 

In conclusion, he said, that in this speech he was no volun- 
teer, that for several years he had avoided saying anything on 
the question, hoping it would be settled; but the submission 
of this treaty made it his duty to review, it carefully in the 
Committee and in making their report to state the reasons 
for their action to the Senate with the hope of aiding to a 
settlement that would remove all possibility of strife between 
the two countries. 

" In this spirit," he added, " I have spoken to-day. If the 
case against England is strong, and if our claims are unprece- 
dented in magnitude, it is only because of the conduct of this 
power at a trying period was most unfriendly, and the injurious 
consequences of this conduct were on a scale corresponding to 
the theatre of action. Life and property were both swallowed 
up, leaving behind a deep-seated sense of enormous wrong, as 
yet unatoned and even unacknowledged, which is one of the 
chief factors, in the problem now presented to the statesmen of 
both countries. The attempt to close this great international 
debate without a complete settlement is little short of puerile." 
* * * « rpj^g truth must be told, — not in anger but in sad- 
ness. England has done the United States an injury most 
difficult to measure. Considering when it was done and in what 
complicity, it is truly unaccountable. At a great epoch of his- 
tory, not less momentous than that of the French Revolution 
or that of the Reformation, when Civilization was fighting a 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 641 

last battle with Slavery, England gave her name, her influence, 
her material resources to the wicked cause, and flung a sword 
into the scale with slavery. Here was a portentous mistake. 
* * * And yet down to this day there is no acknowledgment 
of this wrong — not a single word. Such a generous expres- 
sion would be the beginning of a just settlement, and the best 
assurance of that harmony between two great and kindred 
nations which all must desire." 

At the close of the speech, the Senate rejected the treaty, by a 
vote of fifty-four to one. 

The speech was received with general commendation. The 
Senate approved it and before opening its doors and, without 
suggestion from Sumner removed the ban of secrecy, which the 
executive session had enjoined; and the speech appeared in 
many of the leading dailies of the country. A pamphlet edition 
of it was printed for circulation in England. The President 
and Secretary of State both commended it. Efforts were made, 
in the subsequent controversy between Sumner and the Pres- 
ident, over San Domingo, to show that the President and his 
Secretary disapproved of certain parts of it, but the contem- 
porary evidence to the contrary is conclusive. It was recog- 
nized by them as well as by the masses of Americans as a plain, 
direct and forcible statement of the American position. Its 
conservative tone was noted and it was characterized, at the 
time, as the most popular speech Sumner had ever delivered. 

In England the reception of it was different. It was there 
hoped that the troublesome controversy was in course of final 
and satisfactory settlement, upon terms altogether easy to her. 
When the treaty was so summarily rejected and, accompanying 
the rejection, came the speech of Sumner there was bitterness 
generally expressed and much of it was directed to Sumner. 
His position was a disappointment to his English friends, 
who hoped he would use his influence to close the apparently 
widening breach. In the long years of their friendship they 
had been in accord with so much of his work that they 
were greatly disappointed at his position and, as one of them 
expressed it, when his name was mentioned they were silent 
for the first time now. The daily newspapers in Great Britain, 
which had much to do in molding public sentiment, more than 
in America, did not publish his speech, but resorted to extrav- 
agant statements of its contents, calculated to create preju- 
dice against him. He was held responsible for the action of the 
Senate, though the feeling against the treaty was so general 
and so pronounced that it would have been defeated, without a 
word from him. But after all, the effect of the speech upon 



642 L.1PE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

England was good. It contributed to awaken there a better ap- 
preciation of the merits of the controversy. One of her con- 
trolling public men wrote Sumner in acknowledging a copy 
of the speech : " I cannot tell you how cordially I sympathize 
with what seems to me the governing idea of the speech. Great 
international differences are not- to be disposed of by huddling 
them up and pretending not to look at them, nor to be treated, 
as a man treats a bad shilling, by trying to pass it among a 
handful of half-pence." This would have been good advice to 
give Johnson and Clarendon at the beginning of their labors 
on the treaty. 

Sumner's purpose was not to secure large damages from 
England and certainly not to provoke hostilities between the 
two countries — nothing could have been farther from him. He 
had been for many years the firm advocate of peace. But he 
did wish England to realize the great wrong she had done us, 
and acknowledge it and establish a principle of international 
law, that would be a guide to civilized nations for the future 
and prevent the recurrence of such wrongs and the occasion 
for hostile feeling and perhaps war. 

President Grant was in entire accord with the action of the 
Senate upon the treaty and so expressed himself in his next 
annual message to Congress. He there reiterated the claim 
Sumner had made for national damages, enumerated the 
same items of injury, and regretted that the Johnson-Clarendon 
treaty had assumed that the subject was one for individual 
losses alone. 

" The injuries resulting," he said, " to the United States by 
reason of the course adopted by Great Britain during our late 
civil war in the increased rates of insurance ; in the diminution 
of exports and imports, and other obstructions to domestic in- 
dustry and production ; in its effect upon the foreign commerce 
of the country ; in the decrease and transfer to Great Britain 
of our commercial marine; in the prolongation of the war and 
the increased cost both in treasure and in lives, of its su^Dpres- 
sion, could not be adjusted and satisfied as ordinary com- 
mercial claims, which continually arise between commercial 
nations * * * Not a word was found in the treaty and not 
an inference could be drawn from it, to remove the sense of the 
unfriendliness of the course of Great Britain, in our struggle 
for existence, which so deeply and universally impressed itself 
upon the people of this country. * * * j regarded the action 
of the Senate in rejecting the treaty to have been wisely taken 
in the interest of peace and as a necessary step in the direction 
of a perfect and cordial friendship between the two countries." 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUAJNER 043 

Mr. Motley, our Minister, who had in the meantime succeeded 
Mr. Johnson, announced the rejection of the treaty to the 
English Government. The United States was, under instruc- 
tions from the Secretary of State, committed then to the claim 
for naiional damages, in addition to the claim for individual 
losses. But as the feeling aroused in England by the rejection 
of the treaty and Sumner's speech setting out our wider claim 
for damages rendered the chance of a present settlement un- 
favorable, our Minister was instructed not to press the matter 
then. In these steps Sumner was constantly consulted by Secre- 
tary Fish, who had succeeded Mr. Seward while the treaty was 
still in the hands of the Committee on Foreign Relations. 
During the summer, the Secretary a-eked Sumner to prepare a 
statement of our case to be presented to the English Govern- 
ment, but Sumner declined and suggested General Gushing, 
who did prepare the able presentation of it known as the dis- 
jiatch to Motley of September twenty-fifth, 1869, and embody- 
ing Sumner's views. 

A year went by and nothing further was done. In his an- 
nual message to Congress in December, 1870, President Grant 
spoke of the unwillingness of England to admit that she had 
been guilty of negligence towards the United States or did or 
permitted any act of which they had any cause of complaint 
and suggested that Congress make provision for the proof and 
payment of private claims of our citizens, after notice to the 
English Government, so that our Government could thus be- 
come the owner of these claims. It thus became apparent to 
England that there would be no abandonment of our claim 
and no disposition to be hurried in the settlement of it, by the 
urgency of private claimants. This quickly awakened Eng- 
land's interest in the subject especially in view of the possibility 
of her being involved in the war then waging between Germany 
and France, when piratical Alalamas and ironclads might es- 
cape from American ports to prey on English shipping, or our 
well-equipped gun factories might make sales of arms to her 
enemies. 

Early in January, 1871, Sir John Rose, a London banker, 
was dispatched as a confidential agent of the English Govern- 
ment to learn the feeling in our country on the subject of a 
settlement. Following this up, in the same month, a corre- 
spondence was commenced by England looking to a settlement 
of all matters in dispute between the two countries. The ques- 
tion which for six years had been permitted to lie idle, almost 
ignored by Great Britain, had in a day become urgent. A Joint 
High Commission, the members to be named by each Govern- 



644 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

ment, was created, to meet in Washington and discuss the 
subject. The course of events was so rapid that in twenty- 
seven days from the time of its suggestion the Members of the 
Commission were in New York. They did not wait to receive 
their commissions, which were sent after them by a special 
messenger, and it was laughingly said, they did not delay their 
departure from England long enough to pack their trunks, but 
left that to be done by their servants who were to follow 
them. 

Sumner, though not then a member of the Committee on For- 
eign Eelations, was in frequent consultation with both the 
American and English Commissioners. Two of the English 
Commissioners, Earl De Grey and Sir Stafford Northcote 
brought letters of introduction to him and Sir Edward Thorn- 
ton, the British Minister, invited Sumner to dine with the Eng- 
lish members, no other guest being present. He repeatedly en- 
tertained them. Both sides recognized his familiarity with the 
subject and his influence in the Senate and with the people. 

A treaty was concluded by them in Washington on May 
eighth, 1871. England expressed, in a friendly spirit, her 
regret for the escape of the Alabama and other vessels from 
British ports and for the depredations committed by these 
vessels. She agreed that all the claims growing out of acts 
committed by these vessels and generally known as the Ala- 
bama claims should be referred to a tribunal of arbitration, 
to be composed of five arbitrators, one to be named by President 
Grant, one by Queen Victoria, one by the King of Italy, one 
by the President of the Swiss Confederation and one by the 
Emperor of Brazil. The terms of the Johnson-Clarendon 
treaty were thus far exceeded and the national claims insisted 
upon by Sumner, became a subject of settlement. England 
acknowledged her error in permitting the escape of these ves- 
sels. But a still greater concession was made and one much de- 
sired by Sumner. England agreed that, in deciding the matters 
submitted, the arbitrators should be governed by three rules to 
be taken as applicable to the case ; first, a neutral Government 
is bound to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming 
or equipping within its jurisdiction of any vessel which it has 
reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or carry on 
war against a power with which it is at peace and to prevent 
the departure from its jurisdiction of such vessel there adapted 
in whole or in part to warlike use; second, such Government is 
not to sufPer either belligerent to use its forts or waters for a 
base of operations, supplies or recruitment of men ; third, such 
Government must use due diligence in its forts and waters and 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 645 

over all persons therein to prevent a violation of the foregoing 
obligation. 

Sumner's criticisms of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty were 
thus observed in the making of this one, afterwards known as 
the Treaty of Washington from the place where it was nego- 
tiated. The English Commissioners confessed their obliga- 
tions to this speech of Sumner. One of them said that they 
had used it " as a chart " and that his suggestions had been sub- 
stantially adopted. Sumner himself said the new treaty met 
every point he had made against the Johnson Convention, ex- 
cept the amount of the damages which was of course to be de- 
termined from the evidence. Judge Hoar, who was one of the 
American Commissioners, and who had been in frequent con- 
sultation with him as their work progressed, carried the first 
available copy of it to Sumner inclosed in an envelope, indorsed, 
'' The result of long and earnest labor is presented and ded- 
icated with respect and confidence by his friend, E. R. Hoar." 
Sumner spoke and voted for the ratification of the treaty. He 
suggested some amendments, in the way of principles of inter- 
national law to guide in future wars, but did not press them. 

The Court of Arbitration met at Geneva, Switzerland, in 
December, 1871, and after a hearing of nine months awarded 
fifteen million, five hundred thousand dollars to be paid in 
gold by England to the United States, in satisfaction of all 
claims. 

After the break came between Sumner and President Grant 
over San Domingo, there was an effort made by some of the 
President's friends to make it appear that there were differences 
between them over the Alabama claims. It was said that the 
President felt Sumner's views on the grant of belligerent rights 
to the Rebels and the American claim for national damages 
were extreme and that he might involve us in war with Eng- 
land over them and hence desired his removal from the Chair- 
manship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to promote 
a peaceful settlement with Great Britain, 

From what has already been said it will appear that there was 
no foundation whatever for such a claim. It was only an 
effort by the apologists of the President to conceal the real 
cause of the difference. Some months after the delivery of 
Sumner's speech and after the President had congratulated 
him upon it and repeatedly expressed his approval of its posi- 
tions both on heUigerency and national claims. Grant favored 
the extension of belligerent rights to the insurgents in Cuba, 
in one of their revolutions against Spain. Rawlins, Secretary 
of War, M'as very urgent with the President to have him recog- 



64G LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

nize Cuban belligerency. On the fifteenth of December, 1869, 
Sumner spoke against it in the Senate and he was urgent with 
Fish and others near the President to prevent the step. The 
revolutionists had no city, no government, no courts, no ships 
and hence had no title to be treated as belligerents. The in- 
fluence of Sumner and his friends finally prevailed to prevent 
it and among the arguments used was that it would weaken our 
case against England. But the President was on this account, 
during the fall of 18G9, disposed to give less prominence to the 
action of England in granting the South belligerent rights, 
than he had been at the time and for some months after the 
delivery of Sumner's speech. Hence there was seeming ground 
for the claim made by the President's friends of a disagreement. 

The other point of difiierence claimed was that the President 
did not agree to the claim made by Sumner for national dam- 
ages. But we have seen how the President in his annual Mes- 
sage to Congress in December, 18G9, set out these very claims 
himself ; and he insisted on them repeatedly afterwards. They 
were included in the Treaty of Washington, which was ratified 
by the Senate and were presented, in the statement of the case 
prepared by the United States government, with such fullness, 
that they threatened at the time to break up the court of 
Arbitration at Geneva, by the withdrawal of England. This 
statement Sumner had no hand in preparing and disapproved 
as harsh. It was prepared by the Assistant Secretary of State, 
J. C. Bancroft Davis, under the direction of Secretary Fish and 
was approved by President Grant. A modification of this 
claim was sought and obtained by the English government and 
the arbitration proceeded and hence the pretext for the state- 
ment that Sumner was extravagant. Curiously enough the man 
wlio has made the claim of Sumner's extravagance as the oc- 
casion of the break with Grant, was J. C. Bancroft Davis who 
himself prepared this statement of the American case. 

But these things, if true, would not furnish a justification for 
the removal of Sumner from his place at the head of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Pelations, which he had filled so long and 
with such honor to his country. And if there was no founda- 
tion for them in fact, they should not have been made to cover 
up the real and unworthy cause of the removal. 

Sumner was in entire harmony with the Eepublican Admin- 
istration at the close of the year 1869. He was chosen in 
September to preside over the Eepublican State convention of 
Massachusetts, meeting at Worcester and upon taking the 
chair, reviewed the Issues upon National Affairs at Home and 
Abroad. In the whole speech there was no note of disagree- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 647 

ment. He spoke of the misrule of Andrew Johnson, encourag- 
ing the South to acts of lawlessness and the difficulties Recon- 
struction had encountered under him and said : " Andrew 
Johnson is now out of the way, and in his place a patriot Presi- 
dent. Public opinion must come to his support in this neces- 
sary work. There is but one thing these disturbers feel ; it is 
power ; and this they must be made to feel : I mean the power 
of an awakened people, directed by a Republican Administra- 
tion, vigorously, constantly, surely, so there shall be no rest 
for the wicked." He warned against repudiation in any form, 
and counselled against the grant of belligerent rights to Cuba ; 
and passing to the Alabama claims he reviewed our case briefly, 
but temperately. Speaking of our damages he said: "Call 
them what you please, to this extent the nation lost. The 
records show how our commerce suffered, and witnesses with- 
out number testify how the blockade was broken and the war 
prolonged. Ask any of our great generals, — ask Sherman, 
Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Burnside, — ask Grant." Grant was 
present in his thoughts and he was in full co-operation with 
him in the work of a Republican Administration. 



CHAPTER XL 

CONTINUED INTEREST IN REPUBLICAN PARTY — SCHEME TO AN- 
NEX SAN DOMINGO — SICKNESS — REMOVAL FROM COMMITTEE 
ON FOREIGN RELATIONS — FAILURE OF ANNEXATION 

On the fifteenth day of October, 1870, Sumner presided at a 
Republican ratification meeting held in Faneuil Hall. Gover- 
nor Claflin and Congressmen Hooper and Twichell were candi- 
dates for re-election and the Legislature to be elected would 
choose the successor to his colleague Senator Wilson, who was 
also a candidate for re-election. These men were all close 
friends of Sumner and he desired to see them all re-elected. 
He mentioned all in his speech on taking the chair and urged 
their re-election. 

As showing his still continued harmony with his party, he 
said : " I would add one further word in reply to those who in- 
sist that the Republican party has done its work, and therefore 
may die. Nothing more absurd. It has done a great and ever- 
memorable work ; but much remains to be done." He then re- 
cited its achievements, the suppression of the Rebellion, equal 
rights at the ballot box and in the courts, reconstruction, home- 
steads, a Pacific Railroad, reduction of the national debt with- 
out repudiation in any form, and reduced taxation. He then 
added : " Tt is foolish to imagine that this great party, conse- 
crated to Human Rights, can die. It will live as long as people 
cherish those sublime truths declared by our fathers, of which 
it is the representative and guardian. Its special work will 
always be to stand by the nation in its unity and by the people 
in their rights. For such a party there can be no decay. Men 
whom I now address may grow old, but the Republican Party 
will be ever young." In conclusion he introduced General 
Hawley, of Connecticut, as the speaker of the evening. 

Late in the fall, he was again at his diversion of lecturing. 
He prepared a lecture on the war between France and Germany 
with its lesson to civilization. He delivered it, or his lecture on 
Lafayette, thirty-eight times between the middle of October and 
the opening of Congress in December, reaching west from 
Boston as far as Chicago, with his appointments, and netting 
himself from the proceeds more than seven thousand dollars. 
It was still his aim to meet the expenses of his home in Wash- 
648 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 649 

ington and the publication of his works without encroaching 
upon the principal of his modest fortune. 

His purpose in this lecture on the Franco-Prussian war was 
to again urge the folly of all wars and the necessity of a policy 
of peace between nations. He urged as the first step towards 
this end, the complete disarmament of all civilized nations and 
the substitution of some peaceful tribunal for the trial of in- 
ternational controversies. He recalled the folly of the Em- 
peror Napoleon III, in plunging France into this bloody war, 
thereby causing himself the loss of his crown and his country 
the loss of some of its fairest provinces, as illustrating the 
necessity of some better method of settling international dis- 
putes. The lecture recalls his early plea for peace, before the 
city authorities of Boston. 

It so happened that the first measure that occupied his at- 
tention at the opening of the next Congress, was one of the 
troubles that grew out of our late war. It was an application 
to provide for the return of the Arlington estate to the family 
of General R. E. Lee and for the removal of the graves of the 
Union soldiers buried there during and since the war. Sum- 
ner opposed it vigorously in a speech in the Senate. He was 
with Secretary Stanton, when he made the order for the burial 
of the Union soldiers on this estate. The Secretary then told 
Sumner that he meant to bury the patriot dead there in per- 
petual guard over that ground so that no person of the family 
of Lee should ever dare to come upon it, unless to encounter 
patriot ghosts counted by the thousand." The application to 
return it had only four votes in its favor, while there were 
fifty-four against it. The purpose of the great Secretary has 
held to this day and the use to which he devoted this ground 
will probably never be changed. It is the largest, in the number 
of its dead and the extent of its grounds, of all the National 
cemeteries and, unlike the others, it is yearly increasing the 
number of its graves. 

The prompt opposition of Sumner met the approval of Nast, 
the cartoonist, who published the Senator's picture in Harper'3 
Weekly and sent it with his autograph to him a month later. 

The author of the resolution was McCreery of Kentucky, in 
description of whom it was said that he had gained " prom- 
inence in his party by carefully preparing and accurately com- 
mitting to memory, a political oration each year which he de- 
livered at the Democratic convention of his state." Sumner 
said the resolution was a warning of the policy this party would 
inaugurate, " which would take the old Rebellion by the hemd, 
and install it in the high places of power," 



650 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

These expressions, constantly occurring, show the deep in- 
terest Sumner felt at this time in the future of his party. He 
had stood by its cradle and seen it multiply in good works and 
in strength. With hardly concealed pride he now looked upon 
its position and thought how often he had been in the forefront 
of the battle for the great works accomplished, that were now 
recognized as its titles to honor and confidence. Little did he 
then think, as such things recurred to him, growing old and 
the habit of retrospection coming on, how soon the scene would 
change and the contemplation of this same party, in the hands 
of new men, and the stab at him would bring bitter thoughts 
of good deeds ill-requited. 

President Grant was inaugurated March fourth, 1869. At 
the beginning of his administration he was attracted to proj- 
ects of annexation. The revolution in Cuba first attracted him 
to that island, but friends of the administration prevented him 
from extending belligerent rights to the insurgents and with- 
drew liis attention from this island. Then came the schemes 
for annexation, with which he was plied, on behalf of San 
Domingo. He had hardly been inaugurated, when Baez, the 
leader of one faction in San Domingo, approached him. This 
island had been torn with revolutions for many years. Prior 
to this time it had been divided and the black republic of Haiti 
occupied the western portion of the island, the other and larger 
part being occupied by that of San Domingo. The two rival 
chieftains of San Domingo were Baez and Cabral. Baez hap- 
pened about the time of Grant's inauguration to be in authority. 
But his rival was hovering around the Haitian border, ready to 
depose him as soon as a favorable opportunity presented. 

Eealizing the uncertainty of his office, Baez came to Washing- 
ton and sought the annexation of the country to the United 
States. He had previously made overtures to President John- 
son and Secretary Seward, but had been referred to Sumner, as 
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Eolations of the Sen- 
ate, who, after a patient hearing of his scheme, had declined to 
entertain it. Baez was a native of the island, but of Spanish 
descent, who had all his life been an adventurer, conspirator 
and trickster, without patriotism and supremely selfish in all 
his schemes in connection with his country, tinder favor of 
the successful general in one of the revolutions of Dominica 
he had obtained an election to the Presidency, but scheming to 
retain it beyond the constitutional limit of his term, he had 
been driven from office by an uprising of the people. His 
country being reannexed to Spain, his allegiance was purchased 
by a ]\lajor-Generars commission in the Spanish army. This 



Life of charles sumner 651 

bein^ lost by another revolution, he again sought and obtained 
the Presidency, but was driven from it in less than a year, 
by another popular uprising, on the ground that he was not 
the free choice of the people, but was imposed upon them by 
an armed force. His rival was elected and Baez then came to 
Washington to see Johnson and Seward. Not succeeding, two 
years later, he engaged in another revolution and was again suc- 
cessful in reaching the supreme authority. But. knowing the 
uncertain tenure by which it was held, he now sought to sell 
out to President Grant. 

General Grant was untried in civil life and was more open 
to his arguments than Johnson and Seward had been. He en- 
tered upon a negotiation, which became one of the best known 
of his administration, regretted, perhaps, as much by his friends 
as his enemies. In July, 1869, he sent General Babcock, one 
of his private secretaries, to San Domingo, ostensibly to inquire 
into the condition and resources of the island. His printed in- 
structions did not contemplate more. But Babcock, in fact, 
went farther and negotiated two treaties, one for the annexation 
of San Domingo and another for the lease of the bay and pen- 
insula of Samana. They were both concluded on the twenty- 
ninth day of November, 1869. President Grant afterwards ap- 
proved what he had done, though Babcock's printed instructions 
did not authorize his action. 

On this mission Babcock was accompanied by two war-ships 
of the United States. The one in which he sailed was under 
orders to furnish him every attention and facility in the per- 
formance of his duty and the moral support of its guns. The 
other was placed at his disposal. 

Showing the unfitness of Babcock for such duties, he signed 
his own name to the protocol, entitling himself " Aide-de-camp 
to his Excellency General Grant, President of the United States 
of America," there being no such official, civil or military 
known to the government. The protocol had the further very 
unusual provision in it that " his Excellency, General Grant, 
President of the United States, promises, privately, to use all 
his influence in order that the idea of annexing the Dominican 
Republic to the United States may acquire such a degree of 
popularity among members of Congress as will be necessary for 
its accomplishment." In other words the chief magistrate of 
a great nation was committed to the use of his private influence 
with other high officials to procure them to ratify a treaty of 
annexation. The suggestion is apparent that he had gone too 
far. The President should have been left to the conscientious 
discharge of his high duties and the others allowed an equally 



G52 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

conscientious discharge of theirs, imtranimelled by pressure 
from any source. 

In a letter of Babcock, announcing the conclusion of the 
treaties for the annexation of San Domingo and the lease of 
Samana, to Lieutenant-Commander Bunce of the United States 
vessel Nautashbt, he wrote: " In this negotiation the President 
has guaranteed to the Dominican Republic protection from all 
foreign interposition during the time specified in the treaties 
for submitting the same to the people of the Dominican Re- 
public," — a guaranty the President had no right to make. 
Babcock further made the statement that, for this purpose, the 
Secretary of the Navy had been directed to place three armed 
vessels in the harbor of San Domingo, subject to his (Bab- 
cock's) instructions. He accordingly wrote that he would raise 
the United States flag on the island and leave a guard with it, 
and he directed Bunce to use all his force to carry out to the 
letter the guaranty of the President, if he found any foreign 
intervention threatened. Bunce was further directed to in- 
form any people intending intervention that such a step would 
be regarded as an unfriendly act towards the United States. 

No treaty having been ratified by the Senate, this of course 
meant a taking of military possession of Dominica by the 
President of the United States, without any warrant given him 
to do so. The President was virtually making war upon 
Dominica, without the consent of Congress, which alone, under 
the Constitution had the power to declare war. Only the in- 
experience of President Grant can explain and atone for these 
unauthorized acts done in his name and afterwards approved by 
him. 

Two months later, on the twenty-ninth day of January, 1870, 
Rear Admiral Poor was directed by the Navy Department to 
proceed from Key West, Florida, with two United States war- 
ships, the Severn and Diciator to Port-au-Prince in Haiti and 
inform the Haitian authorities that the United States Govern- 
ment was determined to protect the existing government of 
Dominica, Avith all its power, then to proceed to Dominica and 
protect it against any power attempting to interfere with it, 
to then visit Samana and see the United States authority se- 
cure there and if the Haitians attacked Dominica, with their 
ships to destroy or capture them. 

Here was an open confession of possession taken, by the 
United States, of Dominica and a threat against the Black 
Republic of Haiti if it interfered with this possession, and an 
active war movement of the Secretary of the Navy under in- 
structions from the President to support both. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 653 

On February ninth, 1870, the Navy Department issued an 
order to Commodore Green of the ship Congress, with an arm- 
ament of fourteen nine-inch guns and two sixty-pounders, 
saying that, while the treaty was pending, the United States 
agreed to sustain the Dominican people against their enemies 
in the island and in revolution against the lawfully constituted 
Government and commanding him to resist any attempts by its 
enemies to invade its territories by land or sea. Of course this 
was a declaration to sustain the tottering supremacy of Baez. 
The threat against the invaders of Dominica by land could 
only be against the Black Eepublic of Haiti. There being no 
other government on the island, there could be no invasion by 
land, except from its territory. Baez, a little later confessed 
his own weakness, by notifying Rear-Admiral Poor, that if 
annexation was delayed it would be absolutely necessary for him 
to call upon the United States Government for aid. The Rear- 
Admiral a little later reported that to protect the Dominican 
Government he had found it necessary to send armed vessels to 
different parts of the island, one to the north-west, one to 
Puerto Plata, one to Samana, one to San Domingo. Lieuten- 
ant-Commander Bunce went so far as to threaten foreigners 
in the island, that, if with their aid any one hostile to the 
Dominican Government should get possession of Puerto Plata 
the naval force of the United States would retake it, though 
the foreigners might be the greatest sufferers. 

This was an altogether unjustifiable interference with the 
affairs of peaceable and friendly neighboring nations. It was 
all confessedly done, at the instance and under the authority 
of President Grant. No one now attempts to assert, that, in 
it all, he acted from any dishonest or unworthy motive. Sum- 
ner never claimed that he did. The President sincerely be- 
lieved, that, in the acquisition of this territory, with its prod- 
uct of sugar and coffee and the home it would furnish to a 
portion of our black population, great advantage was to be de- 
rived from its annexation to our country. He clung tenaciously 
to the scheme and only relinquished it, when hopelessly de- 
feated during his Presidency; and he recurred to it again, as 
if to remove every suspicion of insincerity on his part, in those 
last pages of his Memoirs written under the very shadow of 
death. But Sumner did believe that he was acting without 
authority and that he was making a wholly improper use of 
the machinery of the Government that was placed under his 
immediate control and that he was entirely mistaken as to the 
value of the island. Sumner was likewise thoroughly convinced 
of the insincere character and selfish purposes of Baez, who 



554 L,IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

was expecting to reap a large pecuniary benefit to himself al- 
though he was only maintained in power by the President and 
was therefore able to give nothing for what he was to receive. 

The negotiations were secretly conducted and Sumner did 
not know of their existence, until they had been in progress 
for six months. The first intimation he had of them was from 
the President himself. It was during the holiday recess of 
Congress, at the close of the year 1869. He was seated one 
evening at table in his own house, in Washington, with two 
friends, J. W. Forney of the Philadelphia Press, and Ben 
Perley Poore, . another journalist, when the President called. 
His voice was recognizee! by Sumner, who went to the door and 
returned with him to the table. The guests made a movement 
as if to leave, but were motioned to remain, by the President, 
who took a seat with them at the table. The whole party went 
together, in a few minutes, from the dining-room to the 
library adjoining. President Grant introduced the subject by 
alluding to certain new treaties already negotiated. He showed 
his inexperience in Congressional proceedings, by referring to 
Sumner several times as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 
adding that the treaties would come before the Judiciary Com- 
mittee and that he, therefore, wished to speak with him on the 
subject. He then commenced an explanation of the treaties. 
After he had proceeded some length, Sumner not wishing to 
commit himself on the treaties and having a letter from his 
friend J. M. Ashley, who had recently been removed from his 
place as Governor of Montana, of which he wished to speak 
to the President, changed the subject to that and after a few 
words, read a portion of the letter to him, when, thinking the 
President was becoming restless and that he was perhaps pur- 
suing the subject too far, in his own house, he stopped and the 
President again reverted to the treaties. The talk about the 
treaties was very general and left on Sumner's mind no very 
defined idea of what they contained and gave no information of 
tlie character of the negotiations. Sumner was, therefore, cau- 
tious in committing himself. His answer was, as he distinctly 
remembered it : " Mr. President, I am an Administration 
man and whatever you do will always find in me the most 
careful and candid consideration." The President shortly 
after left the house. 

This conversation became important, for it was afterwards 
claimed by the President and his friends, that Sumner then 
gave assurance that he would support the treaties and after- 
wards disappointed the President by opposing them. But this 
conclusion of the President was probably born of his inex- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER G55 

perience in such matters. To one familiar with the caution of 
public otKcers, in expressing themselves upon matters that are 
yet to come before them officially, for determination, it would 
seem very improbable that Sumner would commit himself to 
the support of treaties that he had not even read. He had then 
been in the Senate for twenty years and for ten of them he had 
been chairman of one of its most important committees, the 
o]ie having the first consideration to give to treaties and the 
first disposition to make of them. He was noticeably careful 
and independent of Executive control. Even before his en- 
trance to public life his associations had been for many years 
with attorneys and judges, among whom the impropriety of 
such a premature expression would have been obvious and well 
understood. Sumner would have been the last, from whom 
such an expression could have been expected, and the conclusion 
from the evidence of those present is irresistible that he did not 
give it. When chided afterwards in the Senate with having 
said such a thing to President Grant, Sumner's answer was: 
" Never ! He may have formed this opinion, but never did I say 
anything to justify it; nor did I suppose he could have failed to 
appreciate the reserve with which I spoke." And he again 
reiterated the statement he did make and said he was positive 
in his recollection of it, because it was early fixed in his mind. 
Sumner first saw the treaties on the day following the call of 
the President at his house. They were brought to him by Bab- 
cock and were soon after sent to the Senate where they were 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. When they 
were first laid before the committee, it was apparent there was a 
large majority of it against them. Only one member, Morton, 
said anything in their favor. Before ithey separated Sumner 
expressed the hope that nothing be said, by the members, of the 
talk in the committee and that no vote be taken at that time. 
Seeing the feeling of the committee, he wished that nothing be 
done which could be construed as hasty or unfriendly towards 
the Administration. Sumner had promised the President that 
they should have a careful and candid consideration, and he did 
not for several weeks express any opinion about them in the 
committee. He did not then know how the President had set 
his heart u]X)n annexation, but he wished if the treaties were to 
be rejected that there should be as little friction as possible in 
doing it and that it bo done after a quiet and respectful con- 
sideration, believing that such a way of doing it would be the 
most agreeable to the Administration. He afterwards, in the 
Senate, appealed to his colleagues on the committee, to say 
whether his course there had not been above criticism, patriotic. 



(356 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

as well as always just and considerate towards the President. 
And there was no one to question his claim that it had been so. 

The report of the committee, as has been foreshadowed, was 
adverse. It was presented by Sumner as chairman. On the 
thirtieth day of June, 1870, the Senate also rejected them by a 
vote of twenty-eight to twenty-eight, a vote of two-thirds being 
required to ratify them. Sumner was not in favor of annexa- 
tion and indeed the sentiment of the Senate had been for some 
years opposed to the acquisition of territory to the South. 
Slavery had pressed such acquisition so long and so far, as a 
means of extending its territory and increasing its votes in 
Congress, that it had developed a settled opposition in the 
North to expansion in that direction. Sumner shared in this 
feeling. Indeed annexation would not have had the vote it did, 
except for the subserviency of some Senators to Executive in- 
fluence. Many Senators from the South then held their places 
by a very uncertain tenure and looked to the President to pro- 
vide places for them when their terms were ended. 

But there were other reasons why Sumner was opposed to 
annexation. He was the champion of the colored race in the 
Senate. For many years he had battled hard to abolish slavery 
and establish for this race complete equality in civil rights. 
The island of Haiti was peopled by the colored race. The 
western part of it was occupied by the Black Republic of Haiti. 
It had been an object of tender interest to Sumner for many 
years. In 1862, he had carried, in the Senate, a resolution 
acknowledging her independence and he also secured the pas- 
sage of a bill to authorize the appointment of a Minister to the 
Republic. In both instances he encountered and overcame a 
determined opposition. He was not willing that this experi- 
ment of the black race in self-government should be destroyed. 
Though this was not a direct destruction of the little republic, 
it was only reasonable to conclude that this result would cer- 
tainly follow the step that was proposed. Two powers so un- 
equal in strength as the United States and Haiti could not be 
expected to long occupy the same island, and the prediction was 
freely made during the discussion that the annexation of the 
one would be speedily followed by the absorption of the other. 
It was very natural for Sumner to develop a strong opposition 
to a measure that promised such results. 

But he did not antici])ate the strength of the feeling, in its 
favor, with President Grant. Such schemes had been easily 
taken up and as easily put aside, during the administration of 
both Johnson and Lincoln. Sumner anticipated nothing more 
now and supposed that the matter, being gently treated by the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 657 

Senate, in its rejection, would disappear and nothing more be 
thought of it. But in this he miscalculated. 

General Grant was surprised and chagrined at the action of 
the Senate. He was so thoroughly convinced of the importance 
of the acquisition that he was not prepared for its rejection and 
was inclined to attribute the result to improper motives of those 
who opposed him. And here he made another mistake, which 
afterwards caused additional feeling among those who differed 
from him sincerely and felt that he had been already making 
an improper use of the Navy. Notwithstanding the rejection 
of the treaty, the protection of the Navy was still continued to 
Baez. One naval officer in that service expressed the opinion 
that the withdrawal of our support would be followed by a 
revolt against him. Baez himself, seeming to realize this, asked 
the presence of our ships at different points on the island and 
they were sent. So that the opponents of annexation believed 
he was continued in power by the President. 

This was the situation when at the opening of Congress in 
December, 1870, the President recurred to the subject again in 
his Message and apparently with renewed confidence. He had 
extravagantly predicted that the territory would yield all the 
sugar, coffee, tobacco aad tropical products, the United States 
would consume, and coiud furnish us these articles of everyday 
life at cheaper rates than ever before, would aid materially in 
correcting the balance of trade against us with foreign nations 
and aid us in the race for greatness with other countries. He 
now predicted that, as soon as it was known that the United 
States had abandoned the project of annexation, a free port 
would be negotiated for, in the Bay of Samana, by European 
nations, and a large commercial city would spring up there, to 
which we would be tributary, without corresponding benefits. 
This and other calamities, he thought, would flow from the 
failure of annexation. He therefore recommended that he be 
authorized to appoint a commission to negotiate a treaty for 
the acquisition of the island. 

This at once opened the whole subject up anew and caused 
an explosion of the pent-up feeling, with which Members had 
regarded the action of the President and the use made of the 
Navy, after the rejection of the project of annexation, six 
months before. So intense was the opposition, that the Pres- 
ident's friends did not even discuss the measure he recom- 
mended, but contented themselves in their effort to satisfy him 
with a much milder substitute. On the twelfth of December, 
1870, Morton, of Indiana, offered, in the Senate, a resolution 
empowering the President to appoint three commissioners to 



058 I^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

proceed to San Domingo and inquire into the political con- 
dition of the island, its agricultural and commercial value and 
report to the President. The commissioners were to receive no 
compensation, but their expenses were to be paid and a sec- 
retary was to be provided for them. Even to this there was 
vigorous opposition, in both the Senate and the House. 

Four days after the receipt of the President's message, Sum- 
ner oifered a resolution in the Senate calling for copies of all 
instructions to any agent, consul or naval commander of the 
United States with their reports, and of all treaties or pro- 
tocols, relating to the annexation, and asking for an account 
of the debts of the Dominican Government and for any infor- 
mation in the possession Qf the Administration to show that 
any European power intended to acquire a foothold there. 
Tlius far he had not discussed annexation publicly. In the 
secret session of the Senate he spoke temperately against it; 
l}ing in the tropics and peopled by the blacks, of right belong- 
ing to them, he believed that they should be encouraged to 
hold it and complete their experiment of self-government, 
already begun in the island. He made only a passing reference 
to the unlawful use that had been made of the navy in the 
waters of the island, while the negotiations were pending. He 
had contented himself with a respectful and quiet, but firm, 
opposition to the measure. His attitude as well as his in- 
fluence and leadership had, however, been well known to the 
President and much effort had been made to convert him 
before any vote was taken. 

The agent of the President who undertook to accomplish his 
conversion was Secretary Fish. He had repeated interviews 
with. Sumner on the subject, in which he, urgently and at 
length, argued the question with him, at his house in Washing- 
ton. Sumner found Fish at first seemingly indifferent person- 
ally, but inclined to accommodate the President. As the inter- 
views progressed, Fish's interest increased. Sumner argued 
that he and the President were both wrong, that Baez was cor- 
rupt, that his country was weak and that instead of taking 
advantage of these circumstances they should encourage and 
assist the blacks in an effort to improve their condition and that 
when the question came up for consideration in the Senate he 
could conscientiously pursue no other course. Finding him 
determined, Fish finally at one of their interviews, protracted 
late into the night at Sumner's house, shortly before the vote 
was taken, said to Sumner that if he felt in this way, why not 
leave the Senate ? '' Why not go to London ? I offer you the 
English Mission. It is yours." Surprised at this offer of the 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 659 

Secretary of State, Sumner simply answered, " We have a 
]\Iinister there M'ho cannot be bettered." Thus early was it in- 
dicated that the English Mission, then held by Mr. Motley, 
would depend upon the result of annexation. Sumner still 
argued that it was wrong and that if the President insisted 
upon him pressing it, he sliould refuse ; and resign his place in 
the Cabinet, rather than do it. But Fish answered that he felt 
differently, that he had taken office under the President and felt 
obliged to further his wishes and, moreover, that General 
Grant, by his personal influence, had carried the election for 
the Eepublicans and that they owed something to him in return. 

The substance of these conversations was of course commu- 
nicated to the President, by his Secretary, and when, at last, 
the vote was taken and the treaty rejected, the full measure of 
his resentment became ap])arent. The next day Mr. IMotley was 
removed from his place as Minister to England. This was at 
once recognized as a thrust at Sumner, for Motley was a res- 
ident of Boston and had been approved, for the place, by Sum- 
ner. The indignity of the act as a punishment for mere 
Senatorial independence of Executive control was afterwards 
sought to be concealed and explained away by the Secretary, 
when its impropriety an^ unfairness had become a matter of 
public comment. It was then said that Motley's recall was 
owing to the death of Lord Clarendon, the English Foreign 
Secretary. But the Philadelphia correspondent of the London 
Times had foreshadowed the removal as about to happen, in 
his dispatches to his paper, two days before his Lordship's 
death and when it was entirely unexpected. It was also said 
the recall was owing to Motley's position on the Alabama ques- 
tion. But the Secretary had already expressed his satisfaction 
Avith the Minister's position and besides, these negotiations had 
hcon transferred to Washington, so that the Secretary could 
act as one of the American Commissioners and the Senators, 
who would have to ratify any treaty made, could be conferred 
with, during its progress. Therefore the Alabama claims ques- 
tion had already, for other causes, been taken out of the Eng- 
lish Minister's hands. The cause for Motley's removal was so 
apparent, that the attempt to conceal it only made its un- 
pardonable character more apparent and it has passed into 
history as one of the mistakes of Grant's Administration. 

The renewal of the contest for annexation by the President in 
his Message to Congress, naturally found Sumner in no humor 
to abandon his position. Some words spoken by the President 
and Babcock, showing a disposition to call Sumner to account 
for his action, did not improve the feeling between them. In- 



660 Zz/^-B OF CHARLES SUMNER 

deed Congress regretted the return of the President to the ques- 
tion after the decisive defeat he had sustained in June. But 
if the question had to be met again there was some disposition 
to meet and dispose of it promptly. Sumner sought to secure 
an early consideration of his resolution, asking information 
from the Departments. But there was a disposition to con- 
ciliate the President by appointing a commission to investigate 
the condition and value of the island and hence that was taken 
up for consideration first. Sumner opposed it and on Decem- 
ber twenty-first, spoke against it. He spoke without manuscript 
and only from a few notes, but with some earnestness, remind- 
ing his hearers of the old-time fire he had shown in his anti- 
slavery speeches before the war. As might have been expected, 
he used some expressions that grated on the ears of the Presi- 
dent and his friends, and that it would have been better to 
omit. 

He said the resolution committed Congress " to a dance of 
blood," and was " a new step in a measure of violence." He 
referred to Baez as " a political jockey " and to his partners in 
the scheme, Cazneau and Fabcns, as " two other political 
jockeys " and the three together as " a precious copartner- 
ship ", who had seduced into their fir«i a young officer of ours, 
who entitled himself " Aide-de-camp to his Excellency, General 
Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America ", 
pausing to play on this pretentious title, inquiring if any one 
knew of any such officer appearing anywhere under the Con- 
stitution, the statutes or in the history of the Republic, until 
the appearance of Babcock. He commented on his protocol, 
binding the President " privately to use all his influence " with 
Congress to accomplish annexation. He referred to one of our 
Commodores, acting under instructions from the Administra- 
tion in threatening Haiti, in terms not calculated to conciliate 
General Grant, when he said : " In what school was our Com- 
modore raised? The prudent mother, in the story, cautioned 
her son to take care never to fight with a boy of his own size." 
He drew a parallel between annexation as attempted and the 
Kansas-iSrebraska Bill and the Lecompton Constitution, under 
President Pierce, by which it was proposed to introduce slavery 
into Kansas, against the will of her people. And he continued 
the parallel, when he spoke of Grant's rumored effort to secure 
the ratification of the treaty of annexation, by changing the 
membership of the Committee on Foreign Eelations as in like- 
ness to the removal of Douglas from his committee, at the in- 
stance of President Buchanan, when serving the slave power. 
Counsel the President he said " to shun all approach to the ex- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER QQl 

ample of Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew John- 
son." He quoted from one familiar with the island, to show 
that to receive it from Baez, while its most numerous, intelli- 
gent and wealthy citizens, the leading men of the country, were 
in prison, in exile or in arms against him and having no voice in 
the transfer would result in terrible disaster. " No prudent 
man buys a lawsuit," he said, " but we are called upon to buy a 
bloody lawsuit." And he again protested " against this legis- 
lation as another stage in a drama of blood." 

Some of these are strong expressions. But Sumner felt 
strongly upon this question. He was contending against what 
he felt was a great wrong threatened, against the improper 
exercise of authority, against a powerful and determined ad- 
versary — backed by the patronage of a great office. In such an 
unequal contest, powerful weapons had to be used or defeat 
was certain. All of the expressions that were objected to at the 
time have been given as well as the others, to which exception 
could be taken, that the reader may be able to judge, whether 
the President's subsequent conduct was justified or not. 

These were only heated expressions thrown off in the course 
of the speech. The body of the speech was a vigorous argument 
against the proposed measure. He argued that it was intended 
to commit Congress to annexation, for the President already 
had power to appoint agents to visit foreign countries and 
a secret service fund provided, with which to pay them. So 
that if it was only information that was desired, the President 
already had the means of procuring it at his disposal. He 
enumerated instances when other Presidents had appointed 
these agents, informally called Commissioners, to obtain in- 
formation which was afterwards communicated to Congress. 
He expressly declined to discuss whether the territory was 
desirable or what were its resources or its debts. But he dis- 
cussed at length the nature of the negotiations thus far, and the 
improper means used to maintain Baez in power against the 
will of the people of Dominica, the want of authority of Baez 
and Babcock to negotiate a treaty or protocol and the improper 
character of the one they had negotiated and signed. He 
argued and cited authorities to prove that our ships had no 
right in the waters of the island until a treaty had been ratified 
by the Senate. He objected to their presence there as a menace 
to the independence of the Black Eepublic of Haiti and dwelt 
on the part of the President's ilessage which proposed to annex 
the island. This would include of necessity the territory oc- 
cupied by the Haitians. He sliowed that this territory had 
already been threatened by our navy. It would be in vain, he 



662 LiIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

\ urged, to set forth commercial and material advantages to 
I accrue, when right and humanity were thus sacrificed. The 
island, he said, belonged to the colored race by right of posses- 
sion and by tropical position and it was our plain duty to aid 
and protect them, in an independence there, which was as 
precious to them as ours is to us. 

At the close of Sumner's speech, the Senate adjourned till 
evening and then the debate was renewed. All night long it 
continued and Sumner's speech was the subject of varied criti- 
cism. Chandler charged him with going over to the Democratic 
parly and with having violated a pledge to support annexation, 
given the President a year before. Nye charged that he was 
opposing an inquiry to discover the true worth of the proposed 
possession and he and Morton insisted that he had assailed the 
President and had made an unfavorable comparison between 
him and other Presidents. Conkling foreshadowed the purpose 
of the friends of the Administration to remove him from the 
chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 
midst of this onslaught, Thurman, from the other side, quietly 
reminded them that the Senator they were now dismissing 
from their party, had stood alone in that body in 1850, and 
that since then, sixty had come to follow implicitly his leader- 
ship. To the charge of Chandler that he had not kept faith 
with the President, Sumner answered, giving the interview as 
it has already been narrated in these pages. He denied the 
claim, made by Nye and Morton, that he had assailed the Presi- 
dent and insisted that he had alluded to him as little as possible 
and never except in strict subordination to the main question, 
that he had only put the case upon the facts and he asked again, 
whether Baez was not maintained in power by the arms of the 
United States. A running debate also occurred between him 
and other Senators, particularly Edmunds, who showed some 
feeling. At last, at half past six in the morning, a vote was 
taken, thirty Senators being absent. The resolution was carried 
by a vote of thirty-two to nine. After some debate it was also 
passed by the House, but not until it was amended so as to 
declare that Congress was not to be considered by this action 
as committing itself to annexation. The Senate concurred in 
the amendment, Sumner voting for it. 

Under this resolution the President appointed Benjamin F. 
Wade, of Ohio, Andrew D. White, of New York, and Samuel 
G. Howe, of Massachusetts, as Commissioners to visit San 
Domingo and report upon the condition of its people, their 
disposition toward annexation, the resources of the country, its 
debts, etc. A place on the Commission was offered to Professor 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER G63 

Agassiz, but he declined out of deference to his friendship for 
Sumner, then Dr. Howe was appointed and accepted. Sumner 
predicted that, feeling under obligation to the President, they 
would only report favorably to his views. It is interesting to 
remember, in this connection, the names of those who were so 
prompt to quarrel with Sumner for assailing the President, as 
they called it, in his speech on this resolution. Their names 
will all soon appear again. Whether they were real friends of 
the President or were simply actuated by motives of self-interest 
and a desire for patronage, the reader must judge. The lan- 
guage of Sumner, which they complained of, has been given and 
also his prompt disavowal, on the same day, of any intention to 
assail the President. Doubtless they were just as prompt in 
communicating to the President the vindication they had givpn 
him. The President was displeased. 

Sumner, however, still kept his attention fixed on annexa- 
tion. He pressed his resolution, calling for information, re- 
ports and copies of instructions, to a vote ; and on January 
ninth, 1871, it was taken up and passed.. On February 15, 
another resolution, calling for additional information, was also 



The hard work, the excitement and worry of this contest 
with the Administration, the manifestations of displeasure he 
received, accompanied by threats of removal from his place as 
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Eelations, were too 
much for his strength. A cold attended with some throat and 
lung trouble, from which he had suffered from the beginning 
of the winter, had depleted his system. To a friend he wrote 
that he felt weary and old and disheartened at the course of 
the President. But he 'struggled on with his duties until Feb- 
ruary eighteenth, when he was compelled to yield. For a week 
he was unable to attend the sessions of the Senate. He suffered 
a return of his old trouble, a result of the assault by Brooks, 
the first he had experienced for several years. It was an affec- 
tion of the heart and chest, angina pectoris, attended with sud- 
den and severe paroxysms of pain, necessarily dangerous. It 
was the same trouble that, a few years later, caused his death. 
The illness was severe and caused anxiety to his friends and 
drew from many of them expressions of sympathy. 

A new Congress met on the fourth day of March, 1871. One 
of the first duties of the Senate was the assignment of the Sen- 
ators to places on the Committees. The Republican members 
being in the majority these places were disposed of in a caucus 
of that party. The slate being there fixed, was easily carried, 
at the meeting of the Senate, by the vote of the Republican 



664 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

members. As the prominence and usefulness of a Senator de- 
pended very much on the place he occupied on the Committees, 
there was naturally rivalry between the members for good ap- 
pointments, the best places going to those of longest experience 
and greatest prominence. Sumner had for twelve years been 
a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, one of the 
most important, and for ten of these years he had been its 
chairman. This Committee had assigned to it the business of 
the United States with foreign nations that came before the 
Senate, such as treaties, claims, the settlement of disputed 
boundaries, the annexation by purchase or otherwise of new 
territory. Just at this time the work of the Committee prom- 
ised to be of unusual prominence on account of the pending 
Alabama and San Domingo troubles. Owing to Sumner's long 
experience with the work of the Committee, his familiarity with 
international law and his extensive foreign travel and acquain- 
tance, its duties were congenial to him and he naturally desired 
and expected to be continued in the place he had so long occu- 
pied. The chairmanship of a committee had certain privileges 
with it which he valued, the use of a committee-room, where he 
could meet people in the Capitol privately, and the clerk of 
the committee to assist him with correspondence and other 
public business. The character of both the room and the clerk 
depended a good deal on the prominence of the committee. 

In the Republican caucus called to make the assignments for 
the committees, Sherman of Ohio, Morrill of Vermont, Howe 
of Wisconsin, Nye of Nevada and Pool of North Carolina were 
appointed to draft a list. Of these, the two oldest and ablest 
Senators, Sherman and Morrill, were for the retention of Sum- 
ner in his place, to which he was entitled according to usage 
of the Senate, which did not make changes except for cause. 
But the other three led by Howe were in favor of a change, 
giving Sumner's place to Cameron of Pennsylvania. The chair- 
■man of the caucus, Anthony of Rhode Island was for the reten- 
tion of Sumner and expected that the Members appointed to 
draft the list, would so arrange it, but he was disappointed 
in Howe. Cameron while entitled to the place by seniority of 
service on the Committee, if a vacancy was created, had little of 
desire or fitness for it. But he was on intimate terms with the 
President. It was proposed to place Sumner at the head of a 
Committee on Privileges and Elections, a much less important 
committee, in fact created for the exigency and for whose duties 
Sumner had little qualification and still less taste. 

When the list was read in the caucus, as thus reported, Sum- 
ner was not altogether taken by surprise, for his removal had 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



665 



been threatened by Administration Senators and predicted by 
others, for three months, as the result of his opposition to an- 
nexation. But he did not expect it. He spoke briefly. A flood 
of memories seemed to crowd upon him, as he felt himself 
parted from his old place where, during the long years, he 
had stood with so much pride. He saw the work well done, 
many of the difficult questions of the Eebellion settled, war 
with England and France narrowly averted, the purchase of 
Alaska accomplished, the Johnson-Clarendon treaty rejected, 
the Alabama claims still unsettled, on which he had spent in- 
finite labor and rendered such signal assistance to the State 
Department, and to his country, in moulding public opinion at 
home and abroad. And he saw, instead of this place, a chair- 
manship of a committee on privileges and elections offered to 
Mm., to whom the only politics known, was an honest, laborious 
and brilliant discharge of his duties, so that he never needed 
tricks and questionable combinations, but carried his own elec- 
tions by great waves of popular approval. Was the alternative 
offered, intended to insult and injure him? Gathering his 
robes of honor about him, he called the dead, Lincoln, hi? 
martyred friend with whose inauguration the place had come to 
him, Douglas, Collamer, Fessenden, all gone, his " associates, 
able and eminent Senators," " to testify if he had ever failed 
in any duty, of any labor or patriotism." He declined the 
proffered place and left the caucus. From that day, to the day 
of his death. Senator Sumner had no prominence in the Senate 
or before the country as chairman of any committee, nor even 
a place on any committee; he had no committee-room, as a 
convenience, and no clerk of a committee as a needed help, 
in the discharge of his public duties. 

Mr. Blaine for long years a Member of Congress, for a time 
its Speaker, a Senator, a Secretary of State, later a candidate 
for President and the leader of the Republican party, speaking 
of this act twelve years later, when he knew its unpopularity 
with the American people of all parties, said : " The opening 
of the forty-second Congress, on the fourth of March, 1871, 
was disfigured by an act of grave injustice committed by the 
Senate of the United States. Charles Sumner was deposed from 
the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, — 
a position he had held continuously since the Republican party 
gained control of the Senate. The cause of his displacement 
may be found in the angry contentions, to which the scheme of 
annexing San Domingo gave rise. Mr. Sumner's opposition to 
that project was intense, and his words carried with them what 
was construed as a personal affront to the President of the 



666 L'lFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

United States, — though never so intended by the Massachusetts 
Senator. * * * Never was the power of the caucus more 
wrongfully applied. * * * For his fidelity to principle and 
his boldness in asserting the truth at an earlier day, Mr. Sum- 
ner was struck down in the Senate Chamber, by a weapon in 
the hands of a political foe. It was impossible to anticipate that 
fifteen years later, he would be, even more cruelly, struck down 
in the Senate by the members of the party he had done so much 
to establish. The cruelty was greater in the latter case as 
anguish of spirit is greater than suffering of body. In both 
instances Mr. Sumner's bearing was distinguished by dignity 
and magnanimity. He gave utterance to no complaints, and 
silently submitted to the unjustifiable wrong of which he was 
the victim." 

If it were intended to add indignity to the wrong, a better 
time could not have been chosen. The Joint High Commission, 
for the settlement of the matters in difference between the 
United States and Great Britain, had just entered upon the 
consideration of the Alabama claims in the City of Washington. 
Sumner had first aroused Great Britain to a sense of her danger 
and liability on account of these claims, when, as chairman of 
this committee, presenting an adverse report on the Johnson- 
Clarendon treaty, by a speech making a powerful presentation 
of our case, he foreshadowed its prompt rejection by the Senate. 
He had made a careful study of the case and confessedly un- 
derstood it better than any man in Washington. His speeches 
upon it had been carefully read and studied by Englishmen. 
And now he, who was expected to take a prominent part in 
the settlement of it, who had a wider acquaintance in Europe 
than any man in the Senate, whom the Commissioners from 
Great Britain all knew by his reputation abroad, was removed 
from his official position in the settlement of it and discredited. 
They were given notice, that, so far as the Administration could 
control the situation, he was to have nothing farther to do 
with it. It must have wounded him deeply to refiect that these 
Commissioners, two of whom had brought letters to him from 
foreign friends and one other, whom he knew by kindred 
studies, were witnesses of his humiliation. What news of it 
would they carry back to their homes and to his friends and to 
those, who, for his speeches on these claims, had turned from 
him as " an enemy of England " and were " grievously dis- 
appointed " and for the first time were " silent when he was 
spoken about ? " 

The action of the caucus committee in displacing him was 
not to go unquestioned. Schurz, sitting near Sumner at the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 667 

time, demanded to know the reason for the change. Howe, 
who had read the assignments, answered that the personal re- 
lations of the Senator to the President and his Secretary of 
State, were such as to preclude all social intercourse between 
them. Schurz immediately answered denying the correctness 
of this statement. 

A brief explanation of the excuse, thus given by Howe 
is necessary. Motley, in his valedictory to the State Depart- 
ment had alluded to the rumor that he was removed from 
the English Mission, on account of Sumner's opposition to the 
San Domingo treaty. Secretary Fish had written a letter, 
signed by himself and afterwards laid before the Senate, in 
which, after denying that this was the cause for Motley's re- 
call, he then went entirely out of his way to vilify Sumner, 
saying : 

" Mr. Motley must know, or if he does not know it, he stands 
alone in his ignorance of the fact, that many Senators opposed 
the San Domingo treaty, openly, generously and with as much 
efficiency as did the distinguished Senator to whom he refers 
and have nevertheless continued to enjoy the undiminished 
confidence and the friendship of the President, — than whom 
no man living is more tolerant of honest and manly differences 
of opinion, is more single or sincere in his desire for the public 
welfare, is more disinterested or regardless of what concerns 
himself, is more frank and confiding in his own dealings, is 
more sensitive to a betrayal of confidence or would look with 
more scorn and contempt upon one who uses the words and the 
assurances of friendship to cover a secret and determined pur- 
pose of hostility." 

This letter was dated December thirtieth, 1870, and was 
laid before the Senate, and thus became a public document, in 
January, 1871. The passage quoted is a direct, unprovoked 
and insulting reference to Sumner. It contains a covered 
charge that his opposition to the San Domingo treaty was 
not open and generous and that he had hypocritically used the 
words and assurances of friendship to cover a secret and de- 
termined purpose of hostility toward the President, whose 
confidence he had betrayed. It was written and signed by 
Secretary Fish who had entered the Senate about the same 
time Sumner did, with whom from that day he had sustained 
intimate relations of friendship, visiting him in his home in 
Washington, in New York and at his country seat on the 
Hudson, who had been entertained by Sumner at his home in 
Washington, and who had recently been welcomed, with un- 
concealed satisfaction to the State Department and who had 



6gg LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

already received, at his own request, much assistance in the 
work of that office from Sumner. It was written of Sumner, 
who by a long, uninterrupted and able career in one of the high- 
est National offices, had already become one of the historical 
characters of his generation, whose whole life had been above 
every suspicion of dishonesty and peculiarly wanting in every 
imputation of indirection, hypocrisy or malice. It was written 
under such circumstances that it became and will always re- 
main one of the public records of the country, Executive Docu- 
ments 41 Cong. 3 Sess. Senate p. 36. It was so unexpected to 
Sumner that, between its date and its publication he had on one 
occasion dined and on another called at Fish's house. Sumner 
did not know of its existence until his attention was called 
to it by others. 

For a time Sumner said nothing, hoping the Secretary would 
make some friendly explanation or apology for the wrong done 
him. Receiving none he felt, upon farther reflection, that he 
could not longer continue their former friendship. Fish evi- 
dently anticipated such a result, for shortly after the letter be- 
came public, wishing to advise with Sumner about a resump- 
tion of negotiations with England over the Alabama claims, in- 
stead of going directly to Sumner, as their previous relations 
would suggest, he sent Senator Patterson to Sumner to see how 
he would receive him. Sumner replied that should the Secre- 
tary come to his house he would be at his service for consulta- 
tion on public business, but that he could not conceal his sense 
of personal wrong received from him without reason or excuse. 
The Secretary came and there was a free and full conference 
about the public business, but no mention of private matters. 
Two days later at a dinner given by Mv. Schenek, the successor 
of Motley, Sumner did not recognize Fish socially. 

At this time there had been no break with the President. 
He was probably, as rumor said, displeased with Sumner's 
opposition to the treaty. But Sumner intended no break and 
recognized none. 

From this brief statement of the facts, it will be seen that 
there was nothing in the relations of Sumner, to either the 
President or his Secretary, to in any way affect his discharge 
of the duties of Chairman of the Committee. When this reason 
was given by Howe, Schurz promptly answered for Sumner, 
that he had not refused to enter into any official relation with 
either. So that this must have been merely a pretext. Wilson 
and Schurz both insisted that the real reason was Sumner's 
opposition to annexation and because he had differed from 
the President and Secretary on that question and they argued 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 669 

that a Senator had a right to differ from a President, a Sec- 
retary or any other officer, that Senators were nobody's ser- 
vants, and Wilson added : " I love justice and fair play, and 
I think I know enough of the American people to know that 
ninety-nine hundredths of the men who elected this adminis- 
tration in 1868 will disapprove this act." Trumbull, Logan 
and Tipton also spoke earnestly in the caucus against the 
change. Howe and Nye while supporting it agreed, and no 
one else claimed otherwise, that Sumner had always discharged 
the duties of the place ably, and that it was not intended to 
charge him with unfaithfulness in the past. Such men as 
the two Merrills, Ferry, Wilson, Fenton, Sherman, Windom, 
Logan, Trumbull and Schurz voted against the change. But 
Conkling, Carpenter, Chandler, Edmunds and the Southern 
Senators were its active supporters. Of the Senators from the 
States lately in rebellion, of the carpet-bag class, who came in 
with the years immediately following the grant of a vote to the 
colored people, ten were for the change and only three against 
it, — a difference sufficient to change the result. On the motion 
to recommit the list to the committee, with instructions to 
report a list with Sumner as chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations the vote was twenty-one for it and twenty- 
six against it. 

The next day another caucus was held and a motion to recon- 
sider the question of recommitment was made and debated, but 
it was lost by a vote of twenty-one to twenty-three, — a gain of 
three. When the list, as reported, was moved in the Senate, 
Schurz made a motion to postpone the question, hoping that 
time and reflection would prevent the wrong. Another debate 
followed. Schurz shamed the opposition for subservience to 
the President and justified Sumner for resenting the insult con- 
tained in Fish's letter. Wilson attributed the whole movement 
to Sumner's opposition to annexation, and demanded to know 
why the Senate of the United States should be influenced by the 
feeling of the President or Secretary for any such cause. 
Logan characterized it as " a surrender of the independence of 
the Senate." Sherman declared it " unjustifiable, impolitic and 
unnecessary." Trumbull said he had stood by Sumner " when 
he was stricken down by slavery and he stood by him now when 
stricken down, by the party he had done as much to create as 
any living man." The Democrats opposed the change. Bayard 
suggested that the name of the committee should be changed 
from committee on Foreign Relations to Committee on Personal 
Relations. But this motion to postpone was also lost, as well as 
a motion to adjourn. The decree had gone forth for Sumner's 



670 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

» 
removal and it was to be obeyed. The motion to adopt the re- 
port of the committee was carried, the Republicans, feeling the 
obligation of the action of the caucus, either voting for it or 
refraining from voting at all. But, as if nothing should be 
wanting to complete the unusual character of the scene, the 
Democratic members of the Senate all recorded their votes 
against this unjust action. 

Sumner took no part in any of the proceedings. There had 
been no suggestion, that in the past he had been wanting in the 
discharge of any duty as chairman of the Committee. On the 
contrary his enemies admitted that, with his relations to the 
President and his Secretary different, he would fill the place 
better than any other Senator. With this record, he felt he 
could afford to be silent. When Fish volunteered to make the 
unprovoked assault on him that was made, in the letter already 
quoted, Sumner prepared a statement of his personal relations 
with the President and his Secretary, intending at first to make 
it tlie basis of a speech in the Senate, but upon farther reflection 
and consultation with friends decided to make no reply even 
to this letter. The statement was, however, put in print and a 
few copies of it placed in the hands of personal friends, marked, 
" Unpublished, — private and confidential, — not to go out of 
Mr. — 's hands." He was repeatedly pressed afterwards to pub- 
lish it, but his answer was that he would not do it, for personal 
vindication merely, and that as to Mr. Motley he thought the 
matter stood well enougli before the public. After his death, 
however, a friend to whom one of the copies had been intrusted, 
believing that justice to his memory required its publication, 
gave it to the press. It has since been included in the collected 
edition of Sumner's Works. 

The removal was unpopular, because it degraded a man emi- 
nent in the public service and of deservedly high standing; and 
it also established a dangerous precedent. If the President, by 
the possession of the pviblic patronage, could enter the Senate 
and remove a Senator from his place on one of the most im- 
portant Committees, for a mere refusal to vote for and sustain 
a favorite measure of the Executive, then Senatorial indepen- 
dence was at an end and the usefulness of one department of the 
government was seriously crippled. No other cause for the 
removal ever existed. But to the public this was manifestly 
insufficient and others were trumped up that were not thought 
of or mentioned at the time. They originated, several years af- 
ter Sumner's death, with Secretary Fish and his assistant J. C. 
B. Davis, each probably impelled by a desire to improve his 
own record. They were in substance that Sumner did not, as 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 671 

chairman, promptly report or move forward treaties referred to 
his t'oiumittce and that he was expected to be an obstacle to the 
negotiations with Great Britain over the Alahawa claims. An 
investigation showed they were without foundation. If treaties 
were not reported or pushed forward, complaints would have 
been made. This was a matter that other Senators and other 
members of the Committee could complain of and correct. But 
there was no such complaint against him. His associates, when 
appealed to since, have declared there was no ground for such 
a complaint. And the express disclaimer of any dissatisfaction 
with his past conduct of the work of the chairman, made by 
tliose who sought 'his removal, in the debates over it, should have 
prevented such a claim being made after his death. Farther 
answer need hardly be made to the assertion that Sumner was 
expected to be an obstruction to the negotiations with Great 
Britain, than to recall the reader's attention to the use that had 
already been made, by the Secretary, of Sumner's superior quali- 
fication for that work. If the suggestion had been made by 
iiim, Avith others, that a cession of Canada might be one of the 
results of the negotiations, it should be remembered also, that 
he had always insisted that this possession must never come to 
us, except by peaceable agreement, and with the consent of her 
people. And if mere expectations are to control in estimating 
a man's qualifications for a position, the most fanciful reasons, 
that the wildest imagination could devise, might be urged 
against any man's selection. 

It is interesting to note what became of the leaders of this 
movement in the Senate and how much it profited them. Howe, 
Nye and Pool, the three members of the committee of the caucus 
wiio voted for the report, as well as Carpenter who spoke long- 
est in its favor, all failed of re-election. Conkling another of its 
prime-movers, and who also spoke for it, received one re-election, 
only to quarrel, with both of Grant's successors, in the Presi- 
dency, Hayes, and Garfield, about patronage. He finally in a 
pique over the appointment of a collector for the port of New 
York, resigned his office, and asked a re-election, was refused, 
and then disappeared forever from the field of politics. Ed- 
munds, coming from a state, remarkable for the length of 
service extended to her Senators, continued on the stage some 
years longer, always disappointed in his ambition for promo- 
tion, and then retired. From this list the inference would be, 
that', even in high places, it is best always to do what is right. 
The'Executive favor, if they acquired any by this act, did none 
of these men any permanent good. 

It still remains to be told what became of the other part of 



(j72 L.1FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

tliis controversy, the scheme for annexing San Domingo. 
This can be done in a few words. The resolutions introduced by 
Sumner and passed by the Senate, calling for documents in the 
State and Navy Departments, relative to annexation, resulted 
in making public a good deal of information about the employ- 
ment of the Navy in the waters of the island pending the negoti- 
ations. On the twenty-fourth of March, 1871, Sumner offered 
in the Senate, a series of resolutions, calling for the withdrawal 
of the Navy and condemning its use, to maintain Baez in power, 
while the negotiations for the sale of his country were pending, 
as in violation of the rights of the people of the island, of our 
constitution, and of the principles of international law. They 
disavowed the indignities already shown the Republic of Haiti. 
In support of these resolutions, he spoke at length, in the Sen- 
ate, three days later. It was sought by Conkling to prevent any 
farther discussion of the question, but Sumner under a ruling 
of the Vice-President overcame the obstruction and obtained the 
floor. The news of his intention to speak had gone out and a 
crowd, estimated at two thousand people, was present to hear 
him. It was expected, after the provocation he had received and 
his well-known interest in the subject, that he would show some 
severity towards the Administration. In this, however, they 
were disappointed. He confined himself to a discussion of the 
facts as shown by the dispatches, naval orders and reports which 
were now printed and made public. It was a carefully prepared 
argument to show that the President, in sending the ships to 
Dominican waters to intimidate the people in both parts of the 
island, had exceeded his authority. He criticised the President 
for coming to the Capitol, in his zeal for annexation, to im- 
portune Senators to vote for the treaty; and for assembling 
them at the White House for the same purpose. " Who can 
measure," he asked, " the pressure of all kinds by himself or 
agents, especially through the appointing power, all to secure 
the consummation of this scheme ? " 

Once he drew the temper of his audience, when he declared, 
that if the President had bestowed one-fourth of the time, 
money, zeal, will, personal attention, personal effort and per- 
sonal intercession, which he had bestowed on his attempt to 
obtain half an island in the Carribean Sea, our Southern Ku- 
Klux would have existed in name only, while tranquillity would 
have reigned everywhere within our borders. Whereupon the 
audience burst into applause and the Vice-President was com- 
pelled to threaten to clear the galleries to restore order. 

The Commissioners, Wade, White and Howe, appointed by 
the President under the previous joint resolution of the Senate 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 673 

and House, to visit the island, were conveyed there, in a United 
States war-ship, there being several newspaper men in their 
party. They remained on the island, making observations and 
gathering information, from January twenty-third to February 
twenty-eighth, 1871. As Sumner predicted they made a re- 
port friendly to the President, but much milder than the views 
he had expressed. They agreed that the island could furnish 
sugar, coffee and other tropical products needed for our con- 
sumption and that the example of the free labor there would 
tend to abolish slavery in the other West India Islands. 

The report was communicated to Congress, by the President. 
In the accompanying message, he became personal. He said 
the mere rejection of a treaty only indicated a difference of 
opinion between the Senate and President ; but when the rejec- 
tion was accompanied with " charges openly made of corrup- 
tion on the part of the President or those employed by him, 
the case was different. Indeed, in such case the honor of the 
nation demanded investigation ". He also referred to the " ac- 
rimonious debates in Congress " and " unjust aspersions else- 
where " and added, that " no one could perform the duties of 
President, without sometimes incurring the hostility of those, 
who deemed their opinions and wishes treated with insufficient 
consideration " and added that if the President had the ap- 
proval of his own conscience, he could " bear with patience the 
censure of disappointed men ". These were all well understood 
at the time to be references to Sumner. They show the feeling 
of the President towards him and the treatment he could be 
prepared to expect from his Administration. But they were 
unfair. Sumner had not charged the President with corrup- 
tion. He had never questioned the integrity of the President's 
motives. But he believed he was not well informed of the 
physical or political conditions in the island, that he was not 
properly advised in these duties of his office and that he was 
being imposed on by political adventurers at home and abroad. 
He was determined, without counting nicely the cost to him- 
self, to prevent the consummation of the scheme ; and he did. 

The President having at the hands of the Commission re- 
ceived such vindication as their report furnished, declared that 
his connection with the subject and all his solicitude for it was 
ended. Indeed, he could hardly do otherwise, for it was now 
apparent that neither the Senate nor the House could be in- 
duced to join him in it. 



CHAPTER XLI 

GRATITUDE OF HAITI THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL — SALE OF ARMS 

TO FRANCE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT SPEECH 

AGAINST GRANT — SUMNER AGAINST HIS RE-ELECTION 

The annexation of San Domingo was regarded by the Hai- 
tians as threatening the independence of their Republic and 
they showed in several ways their appreciation of Sumner's 
efforts to defeat it. On July thirteenth, 1871, the Haitian 
Minister at Washington placed in his hands a medal from the 
President and other distinguished citizens of the Republic, 
accompanied by a letter in which they said that " by his 
eloquence and his high morality, he had made free four millions 
of blacks in the United States ", but insisted that great as this 
work was, it was still more to have protected and defended the 
independence of Haiti on two solemn occasions and to have 
thus affirmed the aptitude of the black race for civilization and 
self-government. In replying to the letter Sumner said that 
self-government implied self-respect and that in clinging to 
national life not only for the sake of their own Republic but 
as an example to their race there would, if successfully accom- 
plished, be a triumph for the black man everywhere, marking 
an epoch in civilization. He felt it, however, his duty to decline 
the medal because of the provision in the Constitution for- 
bidding any officer of the United States to accept a present 
from a foreign State. It was thereupon given to the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts and was afterwards deposited in the 
State Library at Boston. 

A year later on the occasion of the Haitian Minister going 
to Washington he carried from the President of his Republic a 
letter gratefully acknowledging the service of Sumner to their 
country. Sumner was then in Europe and it did not come to 
his hands for some time and then it remained unanswered for 
several months longer, owing to his sickness. In his reply, 
dated on the anniversary of our National independence, July 
4, 1873, he said that in history the crime against the African 
race would stand forth in terrible eminence, always observed 
and never forgotten ; and apparent in its true character just in 
proportion as civilization prevails. And he predicted that with 
674 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 675 

increasing light the denial of equal rights, on account of color, 
would not escape the judgment that had already been awarded 
to slavery itself. The same year the Republic, in recognition 
of his services, ordered a full length oil portrait of him, the 
last likeness painted from life. It represents him speaking 
in the Senate and is considered one of the best portraits of the 
Senator. It now hangs in the Senate Chamber of the Haitian 
Capitol at Port-au-Prince. 

An incident occurred as the Commissioners appointed by the 
President were returning from San Domingo that attracted 
some attention at the time and was afterwards used by Sumner 
in the debates for equal rights. Frederick Douglass, under the 
provisions of the joint resolution providing for the Commission, 
had been appointed Secretary to the Commissioners. This was 
the only salaried officer provided for in the resolution. As the 
mail steamer of the Potomac River bearing the Commissioners 
on their journey from San Domingo, was approaching Wash- 
ington, Douglass was refused, by the officers of the vessel, a 
place at the supper table, with the Commissioners, nor was he 
invited to dine with them at the White House when they were 
entertained, by the President, three days later. Douglass was 
the leading colored man of the country, one of the most eloquent 
men of his generation, and his exclusion solely on account of 
color, at a time when there was so much agitation of the race 
question, could not fail to provoke remark. 

In May, 1870, Sumner introduced a bill to protect all per- 
sons in their civil rights. It was referred to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee and was held by it till a few days before the close of the 
session and then was reported on adversely. On January twen- 
tieth, 1871 Sumner introduced it again and with the same 
result. On the opening of the next Congress, March ninth, 
1871, Sumner introduced it again and, remarking that it had 
twice been adversely reported on, did not ask a reference of it 
to the committee, Ibut gave notice that he would do what he 
could to press it to a vote. Not succeeding, however, at that 
session, he brought it up again at the next and a few days later 
he moved it as an amendment to the pending Amnesty Bill, 
providing for the removal of the disability imposed in the Four- 
teenth Amendment upon those who as National or State officers 
had taken an oath to support tlie United States Constitution 
and had afterwards engaged in the Rebellion. This disabled 
them from holding any office. State or National, until the dis- 
ability was removed by a tAvo-thirds vote of each House of Con- 
gress. In the debate that followed, he insisted that the two 
should go " hand in hand," that he " remembered too well the 



676 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

fires over which we had walked in the latter days not to know 
that reconciliation was impossible except on the recognition of 
equal rights." He insisted that the door of the public inn, of 
the theatre, the railroad car, the school, the church and the 
cemetery should be open by law to the colored man, the same as 
to the white. As an illustration he introduced in his argument 
the case of Frederick Douglass, already mentioned. While he 
had never sought the punishment of any one, he said, he re- 
joiced to know that the Rebellion had closed without the sacri- 
fice of a single human life, by the civil power, as he had pre- 
dicted it would early in the war. He now insisted upon this 
measure of justice to the colored race. He reminded Senators 
" that higher than any beauty in art or literature was the 
beauty in relieving the poor, in elevating the down-trodden and 
being a succor to the oppressed, that there was true grandeur 
in an example of justice, making the rights of all the same as 
our own and beating down prejudice, like Satan under their 
feet." 

Although now broken in health and feeling the weight of 
years, never did the persistency of Sumner come out more fully 
than in the conduct of this bill. It was humorously referred to, 
during the debates, by Senator Flanagan, of Texas, " I am re- 
minded," he said, in referring to Sumner, " that it is best to 
get rid of the imposing Senator, just as the lady answered her 
admirer. The suitor had been importuning her time and again 
and she had invariably declined to accept the proposition. 
At length, however, being very much annoyed, she concluded 
to say ' yes ' just to get rid of his importunity. I want to go 
with the Senator to get rid of this matter, because, really, Mr. 
President, we find his bill here as a breakwater. A concurrent 
resolution was introduced here for the adjournment of Con- 
gress at a particular day. Well, you saw that bill thrust right 
on it. ' Stop ! ' says he, ' you must not adjourn until my bill is 
passed.' There it was again ; here it is now ; and we shall con- 
tinue to have it ; and I am for making peace with it by a general 
surrender at once." 

During one of the debates on the bill, a passage occurred 
between Sumner and Senator Carpenter who was objecting to 
the equality proposed in the churches. Carpenter insisted Con- 
gress had no right to interfere and he asked Sumner whether it 
would be constitutional to enact that in no church should the 
Host be exalted during divine service. Sumner promptly an- 
swered that Congress could not interfere with any religious 
observance, but that he was not proposing to interfere with 
it, that all he asked was complete equality before the law. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 677 

in the inn, on the highway, in the school, the church, the jury 
and in cemeteries, the last resting-place of the dead. He in- 
sisted that if the church were to be incorporated and protected 
by law, they should not be allowed to insult a fellow human 
being on account of color. 

" The Senator," he said, " steps forward and says : No ! * * * 
You listened to his eloquent, fervid appeal. I felt its eloquence, 
but regretted that such power was employed in such a cause. 
I said that, consciously or unconsciously, he had copied Petrol- 
eum V. Nasby's hymn. 

' Shel niggers black this land possess, 
And mix with us up here ? 
O, no, my friends; we rayther guess 
We'll never stand that 'ere.' " 

Nasby's letters were favorites with Lincoln and Sumner. 
Both recognized the part they performed in abolishing slavery 
and aiding reconstruction. Sumner wrote an introduction 
for a permanent edition of them, in which he said that coming 
periodically and enjoying an extensive circulation, each letter 
was like a speech or one of those songs which stirred the people. 

A motion to strike out the provision in the Civil Rights Bill 
as to churches was afterwards carried. Thus amended, Sum- 
ner's motion to make it a part of the Amnesty Bill was carried 
by the casting vote of Vice-President Colfax. But when this 
bill, in the amended form, came to a vote it failed to receive the 
two-thirds vote required to pass it. Democrats, opposed to the 
Civil Rights provision, voted against the Amnesty Bill con- 
taining it. Sumner introduced it again and one night when 
the Senate was holding a night session to consider the Ku-Klux 
Act, and when he was obliged to absent himself from the Senate 
on account of sickness. Chandler, taking advantage of his ab- 
sence, had it passed in a greatly modified and unsatisfactory 
form, leaving out the requirement of equality in juries and 
in the public schools. Spencer, of Alabama, protested that it 
was unfair to Sumner to thus act on his bill, in his absence, 
and tried to secure an adjournment, but failed. A messenger 
was then sent to Sumner's house for him and he arose and 
dressed and hurried to the Senate to enter his protest, but he 
was too late. This bill, however, failed in the House. But the 
Amnesty bill with which Sumner had sought to associate it was 
was passed. The next session Sumner was unable to attend 
the sessions of the Senate on account of sickness; but on the 
first of December, 1873, he introduced it again, leaving out the 
provision as to churches, which had been voted out by the 
Senate. 



678 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Sumner felt a deep interest in this bill. With it passed, he 
said that he could retire from public life and feel that his life- 
work for the equality of the colored race was accomplished. 
When it had been made a part of the Amnesty Bill by the cast- 
ing vote of the Vice-President and there seemed to be a well- 
grounded hope for its passage, he wrote Longfellow : " I am 
weary, and often say, How much longer must this last? I 
have been gratified by the success of tlie Civil-Rights Bill. I 
begin to believe it will become a law; then will there be joy. 
Very few measures of equal importance have ever been pre- 
sented. It will be the cap-stone of my work. Then, perhaps, I 
had better withdraw, and leave to others this laborious life." 

The bill did become a law, after Sumner's death, but was 
subsequently held unconstitutional, by the Supreme Court, on 
the ground that it was an invasion of the rights of the people 
of the States, in their purely domestic relations, — a result that 
had been predicted during the debates by Morrill (Me.) and 
Carpenter. Sumner, in his zeal for equal rights, sometimes 
overlooked such considerations. An illustration of it was given 
in this debate, when in reply to Morrill he said : " I insist that 
the National Constitution must be interpreted by the National 
Declaration. I insist that the Declaration is of equal and co- 
ordinate authority with the Constitution itself." This posi- 
tion, it need hardly be added, could not be approved, by law- 
yers generally. 

In 1872 Sumner moved an investigation that further tried 
his now broken health and strength. The Franco-Prussian War 
having commenced, the United States had promptly issued a 
declaration of neutrality. A sale of the large supply of arms, 
accumulated during our recent war, had been taking place. 
At the breaking out of the European war and the declaration 
of our neutrality, these arms were being sold to Remington & 
Sons, of New York. They were discovered to be agents of 
France. Further sales to them were forbidden by the War 
Department, but the sales were continued to others, apparently 
connected with the Remingtons, and the arms were still going 
to France. Sumner was not willing to see the spirit of neu- 
trality thus violated while its letter was being upheld, — es- 
pecially while negotiations for indemnity were in progress l)e- 
tween the United States and Great Britain, for similar infrac- 
tions. He introduced a resolution providing for a committee to 
investigate all these sales. An acrimonious debate ensued, 
Sumner and Schurz alone speaking for it, but Conkling, Car- 
penter and several others opposing it. Sumner's health was 
not equal to the work, and Schurz, at his request, took the lead 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 



679 



in the debates. The resolution carried. But a committee was 
selected of those who had opposed it. Neither Sumner, nor 
Schurz, was accorded a place on the committee. Sumner filed 
two protests against the committee as thus constituted and 
refused to appear before it to testify. He placed his refusal on 
the ground that the committee was thus improperly constituted 
and on the further ground that what information a Senator 
acquired should be privileged just as the information is, that is 
acquired by a member of the grand jury. The committee did 
not seek to compel him to testify, but hushed up the investiga- 
tion. The Prussians did not promote it or complain of the 
sales, Bismarck significantly remarking, when his attention was 
called to it, that it was cheaper to capture the arms on the 
Loire, than to purchase them in Washington. The investiga- 
tion, however, such as it was, stopped the further sale. 

It was the tone of the Administration of President Grant, as 
revealed in such transactions, that went far to create the want 
of confidence and dissatisfaction, that was felt at the close of 
his first term. Sumner had vigorously protested against it in 
the San Domingo scheme and had been made to feel it, in his 
removal from his committee and in the recall of Motley. He 
was dissatisfied with the Administration in other ways. He 
was not alone in this feeling of dissatisfaction. It was be- 
coming widespread among Republicans. The question was fre- 
quently asked, what would be Sumner's attitude toward Grant's 
renomination ? Except to his intimate friends, he maintained 
a discreet silence upon the subject. He hoped that Grant would 
not be a candidate and there was some foundation for this 
hope; for those close to him, at the time of his first nomination, 
had published, apparently by authority, and certainly without 
contradiction, that he was in favor of limiting the President 
to a single term. But as time passed it became apparent that 
tJiis hope was not to be realized. Grant's friends were pressing 
his claim for a renomination. Sumner then determined to 
defeat it if he could, though he appreciated the force of the 
precedent in favor of a second term and likewise the power 
which the patronage of the office gave the incumbent. 

Schurz and Trumbull, fellow Senators, both very near 
friends, had already communicated to Sumner their determina- 
ftion to oppose Grant's re-election. Senator Fenton, of New 
York, was also dissatisfied. For four years he had been the 
recognized leader of the Republican organization in New York. 
Horace Greeley was his candidate for the nomination for Gov- 
ernor, in 1870, but he was defeated in the convention by 
Stewart L. Woodford, under the risijig leadership of Roscoe 



680 I-iPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Conkling, as it was claimed by the use of Federal patronage. 
Greeley was among the disaffected. And his paper, the New 
York Tribune as well as the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati 
Commercial and the Springfield Republican, four of the most 
influential of the hitherto Eepublican dailies of the country, 
were opposing him. The list of disaffected included such men 
as David Dudley Field, of New York, Colonel MeClure, of 
Pennsylvania; Stanley Matthews and George Hoadly, of 
Ohio; Governor Brown and Joseph Pulitzer, of Missouri; 
Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky; George W, Julian, of Indiana; 
F. W. Bird, a very near friend of Sumner, of Massachusetts, 
and David A. Wells, of Connecticut. More than any other, 
perhaps, Schurz was entitled to be called the guiding spirit of 
what has been known as the Liberal Eepublican movement of 
1872. 

It originated in Missouri in 1870. That State had not se- 
ceded, but many of her citizens had become Confederates. 
These Confederates had been disfranchised by an amendment 
to the State Constitution and now that the war was closed they 
asked that this disability be removed. But the Legislature was 
Eepublican and the party divided upon this question. Schurz 
and Brown headed a minority that united with the Democrats 
and removed the disability. It was a movement that had 
already been foreshadowed by Greeley, when, in 1868, he ad- 
vised the Democrats to nominate Chief Justice Chase, on a 
platform of amnesty and suffrage. Such a course he believed 
would go far to heal the differences created by the war and be 
a great aid to reconstruction, even though it did not succeed. 
This advice had made a deep impression at the time and with 
the growing dissatisfaction over President Grant's course, it 
had gathered strength in the intervening years. 

The Liberal State Convention of Missouri issued a call for a 
National Convention to be held at Cincinnati on May first, 
1872. As the party had no organization elsewhere, it neces- 
sarily partook of the character of a mass convention. Every- 
body went who would and to equalize the representation, those 
present selected the delegates from their number to represent 
their respective States. Stanley Matthews was made tem- 
porary and Carl Schurz was the permanent chairman. Both, 
in their speeches on taking the chair, emphasized the personal 
and military character of the Administration of President 
Grant. Each protested that they were still Eepublicans and 
that it was only the perversion of the office to the personal pur- 
poses of the President and of a few of his favored lieutenants, 
in controlling States, that led them to take this step. Charles 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 681 

Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, Horace Greeley, of New 
York and Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, were the leading 
candidates for President, and, on the sixth ballot, Greeley was 
nominated. B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, was nominated for 
Vice-President. 

Sumner did not attend the convention and had not com- 
mitted himself to the movement. lie was very loath to leave 
the Republican party. Around it gathered the political asso- 
ciations of a long public career, now, as the condition of his 
health warned him, drawing to a close. For many weeks he had 
been the target for rival influences. On the one side were many 
party associates, in public life, who knew the value and the 
extent of his public labors, the worth to the party of that high 
moral character, for which he was widely known — such men as 
his colleague in the Senate, Henry Wilson, who had done what 
he could to avert the wrong Grant had done him and had been 
constant in his endeavors to heal the breach thus created. 
They were anxious to retain Sumner in the party, and preserve 
harmony. On the other side was the peculiar private following 
of friends of a lifetime — such as F. W. Bird, who held no 
public station, sought in politics only the good of his fellow- 
men and, who was leaving the party because of the injury done 
Sumner and the degradation, as" he thought, of the public 
service under Grant. They urged him to go along with them. 

Some weeks before the convention, it was given out, that he 
would be present and preside over its deliberations and make a 
speech. This was promptly denied. He was spoken of as its 
candidate for President, but he gave it no encouragement. His 
name was not brought up or voted on in the convention, be- 
cause his friends there knew he would not permit it. It was 
apparent he was not the man to lead such a movement. For its 
success, it would have to depend on uniting the Democrats. 
Sumner could not do this. His whole career for the destruction 
of slavery and for the equal rights of the colored people had 
been antagonistic to them and he could not hope to be accept- 
able to the Southern States. The logical candidate was Charles 
Francis Adams, who liad been absent from the country as 
Minister to Great Britain, during the war and who led the vote 
on each ballot in the convention till the one on which Greeley 
was nominated. But it is not likely that the movement would 
have succeeded with any candidate. Great as the dissatisfac- 
tion was, and certainly with reason, it was not for cause suffi- 
ciently grave nor so widespread as to overcome the force of 
established precedent for two terms and Grant's great war 
record. 



682 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

Sumner was in close touch with the leaders of the movement 
and he furnished a draft of the platform. It was carried from 
Washington to the convention by F. W. Bird. It declared for 
equal rights, for emancipation and equal suffrage and against 
any reopening of the questions settled by the Amendments to 
the Constitution. With the tariff there was trouble, as might 
naturally be expected, when it was sought to unite in the same 
party men of such pronounced opinions and so widely separated 
as Horace Greeley, who had been a lifelong protectionist and 
had written a book, much of it in support of his position, and 
Democrats who had always stood for free trade, or a tariff for 
revenue only. The leaders of the movement, those who called 
for it, created it and were the strongest in support of it, the 
Missouri Liberals, the delegates from New York, Ohio, Illinois 
and the New England States were generally protectionists. 
There was a sharp contention over it in the convention, but it 
was finally harmonized, in the only frank way apparently pos- 
sible, by agreeing to disagree. A plank was adopted remitting 
that subject to the people in their Congressional districts and 
to Congress free from Executive interference, — a position that 
Sumner afterwards declared was the most candid expression on 
the subject ever made by any convention of his time. The 
platform demanded the immediate and absolute removal of all 
disabilities imposed on account of the war; and it was this 
plank, with that on the abuse of the civil service under Grant, 
that were mostly urged, by its supporters, in the campaign 
which followed. 

For three months after this convention, Sumner maintained 
a reserve as to what course he would pursue. To one urging 
him on the subject, he wrote : " I shall not speak until I can 
see the whole field and especially the bearing on the colored 
race. I mean to fail in nothing by which they may be helped; 
therefore all stories as to what I shall do or shall not are in- 
ventions. * * * But I seek two things: (1) The protection 
of the colored race, and (2) The defeat of Grant." He still 
hoped to accomplish the latter and thereby remove any occa- 
sion for a separation from his party. He was for some weeks 
engaged in the preparation of a speech against Grant, which 
he was determined to deliver in the Senate, on the first oppor- 
tunity that presented itself. He had hoped to find an occa- 
sion, on the presentation of the report of the committee on the 
sale of arms to France. But that came in too late for a time 
to be set apart for its consideration. On the thirty-first day 
of May the Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill came up and 
Sumner seized the opportunity then afforded, in the closing 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 683 

days of the session, and within a week of the assembling of the 
Eepublican National Convention at Philadelphia. 

When Sumner obtained the floor and commenced to speak, 
there were only a few persons in the Senate Chamber. Routine 
business was being transacted and it was receiving little atten- 
tion, for the night session of the previous day had continued 
until three that morning. The speech was entirely unexpected. 
As he continued and word went out that he had the floor and 
was arraigning the Administration, Senators sought their seats, 
]\Iembers of the other House came in and the galleries filled. 
Schurz was there, listening attentively, with sympathetic in- 
terest, to what was said; Conkling was there, too, feigning a 
proud indifference. For a while he sat apparently meditating 
what answer, as leader of the Administration forces, he could 
make. Again, with the air of one who considered what was 
said unworthy of attention, he stood in a group on the floor 
within a few feet of the speaker noisily conferring with Senators 
Morton and Carpenter, of the same ring, until called to order. 
Some Members of the Cabinet were there and heard him charge 
that two, perhaps three, of this " official family " had re- 
ceived their appointments in apparent return for gifts made to 
the President. Some of his " military secretaries " were there 
and learned that one Senator, at least, thought their place was 
in the camp and not in the Council Chamber. While some dele- 
gates to the approaching convention, on their way to Phila- 
delphia, discovered that they had stopped off at the Capitol, un- 
expectedly to learn some new things about the candidate they 
were intending to support. For three hours he held the atten- 
tion of his audience easily to the end, and the Senate then 
adjourned. 

The speech was destined to be the last, as it was one of the 
best of those great efforts, like his Crime against Kansas, his 
Barharism of Slavery, and for the Purchase of Alaska, made by 
Sumner at varying intervals on the floor by the Senate, that 
placed him in the front rank of parliamentary orators. It 
has hardly its equal in kind in the English language. A speech 
like it would not be made in Europe ; and in America it never 
was. It finds its likeness in those efforts of Demosthenes, striv- 
ing to rouse the dying energies of his country against the ag- 
gressions of Philip. Sumner was full of his subject; it had 
occupied his thoughts for many months and he spoke as one 
weighing well his words, appreciating the consequence to him- 
self and yet determined to speak the whole truth plainly and 
without fear. In reviewing the speech afterwards, Blaine said, 
" Sumner sought to challenge and prevent the renomination of 



684 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

General Grant by concentrating in one massive broadside all 
that could be suggested against him." 

At the beginning, as if to leave no equivocal impression of 
his position and show that it was the man and not the party he 
fought, that he abated not one jot of his principles, he said : 
" Mr. President : — I have no hesitation in declaring myself 
a member of the Eepublican Party, and one of the straightest 
of the sect. I doubt if any Senator can point to earlier or more 
constant service in its behalf. I began at the beginning, and 
from that early day have never failed to sustain its candidates 
and to advance its principles. For these I have labored always 
by speech and vote, in the Senate and elsewhere, — at first with 
few only, but at last as success began to dawn, then with mul- 
titudes flocking forward. In this cause I never asked who were 
my associates or how many they would number. In the con- 
sciousness of right I was willing to be alone. To such a party 
with which so much of my life is intertwined, I have no com- 
mon attachment. Not without regrets can I see it suffer; not 
without a pang can I see it changed from its original character, 
for such a change is death. Therefore do I ask, with no com- 
mon feeling, that the peril which menaces it may pass away." 

He spoke of the pretension of the President, in defiance of 
all law, treating for the annexation of San Domingo, pledging 
his personal influence in support of it, surrounding the country 
with ships of our navy to terrify it into submission, threaten- 
ing the republic of Haiti; and then reading a Senator out of 
the party because he dared in his place in the Senate to protest 
against such high-handed measures. Such personal government, 
he insisted, was unconstitutional and unrepublican ; it was one- 
man power elevated above all else. He argued that one always 
a soldier could not later in life become a statesman, that prep- 
aration for each was needed, that their characters were different, 
that, unlike Washington and Jackson, whose training had been 
civil as well as military. Grant, whose training had been ex- 
clusively military, was in fact, as shown by his Administration, 
unfitted for the Presidency. 

He then passed to two typical proofs of Grant's unfitness — 
Nepotism and Gift-Taking — wherein he had converted the 
Presidential Office into a personal instrumentality. One list, 
he said, placed the number of persons related to the President 
by blood or marriage, holding office of the Government, at 
forty-two ; it was conceded there were thirteen ; no one of whom 
but for the relationship, would have had his place. He argued 
that thus a pernicious example of kingly rule was being intro- 
duced almost for the first time into our Eepublic. Gift-taking, 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 085 

without precedent, was likewise being introduced, he said; that 
at least two, perhaps three, members of the Cabinet had been 
repaid for gifts, by their appointments, thus subordinating the 
public service to personal considerations and he instanced the 
notorious case of Murphy, maintained at the head of the New 
York Custom House and another at the head of the New Or- 
leans Custom House for similar reasons. He admitted that 
the President had a discretion in the appointment of his Cab- 
inet, but it was a constitutional discretion, to be regulated by 
the interest of the country and not by mere personal will, that 
men must be selected, qualified for the place, not as A. T. 
Stewart of New York for Secretary of the Treasury, of no 
experience and disqualified, by his interest as an importer under 
the law; or Borie for Secretary of the Navy, till then so un- 
heard of, that the great Admiral Farragut, over whom he was 
placed in authority, was constrained to start the inquiry, " Do 
you know anything of Borie ? " that Borie a little later con- 
fessed his disqualification and resigned ; and Washburn, Grant's 
Congressman during the war, who was given the appointment 
of Secretary of State as a personal compliment, with the un- 
derstanding that he would forthwith resign. 

He spoke of the illegal " military ring " at the White House, 
Generals Babcock, Porter, Badeau and Dent, acting as Grant's 
secretaries and adding their military titles to the civil papers 
they signed. He said the President had " operated by a sys- 
tem of combinations, military, political, and even senatorial, 
having their orbits about him, so that like the planet Saturn, 
he was surrounded by rings — nor did the similitude end here, 
for his rings, like those of the planet, were held in position by 
satellites." He called attention to irregularities, in the War 
Department, whereby the Secretary himself was subjected in 
authority to military officers and in the Navy Department 
where the duties of an incompetent Secretary were devolved on 
Admiral Porter; and in the Indian Bureau, his effort to ab- 
sorb it into the War Department and change its char.acter as 
a part of the civil service, by detailing sixty army officers," left 
out of their regimental organizations by the consolidation of 
regiments," for service there, until the abuse was remedied by 
an act of Congress. 

Sumner dwelt on Grant's interference with elections, by 
troops at the poles in the South, and his endeavor to control 
conventions by the use of patronage in the North, of his dis- 
position to quarrel with officials, who were not submissive to 
him ; in the Cabinet, as shown by constant removals ; in the 
Senate as shown by the interference with committees; in the 



686 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

House and in the army. He said the ruler of forty million 
people had no right to quarrel with any one, because his position 
was too exalted; it shocked the decencies of life and jarred the 
harmony of the universe. " Evidently," he said, " our Presi- 
dent has not read the eleventh Commandment : ' A President of 
the United States shall never quarrel.' " But to Grant, he said, 
" a quarrel is not only a constant necessity, but a perquisite of 
office. To nurse a quarrel, like tending a horse, is in his list 
of Presidential duties." * * * " ]\,£gj^ i^]^q ^-j-^gjj. pieces in 
history according to their deeds. The flattery of life is then 
superceded by the truthful record, and rulers do not escape 
judgment. Louis the Tenth of France has the designation 
of Le Hutin or ' The Quarreller ' by which he is known in the 
long line of French Kings. And so in the long line of Ameri- 
can Chief-Magistrates has our President vindicated for him- 
self the same title." 

He argued that with the adoption of all his Presidential pre- 
tensions the creed of the party ceased to be Eepublican and 
became Grantism, that it became no longer a political party, 
but a personal party. He could say he was no man's rnan nor 
did he belong to any personal party. He plead for a single 
term for the President, that all temptation to use the great in- 
fluence of the office, for a re-election, might be removed and 
urged that the National Eepublican Convention might not be 
made another " Presidential Ring," a mere expansion of the 
" Military Ping " of the White House, the " Senatorial Ring " 
of the Senate Chamber and the " Political Rings " of the 
Custom Houses of New York and New Orleans. " A National 
Convention, which is a Presidential ring, could not represent 
the Republican Party." 

" Much rather/' he said in closing, " would I see the party 
to which I am dedicated, under the image of a life-boat not to 
be sunk by wind or wave * * * I do not fear the Demo- 
cratic Party, nothing from them can harm our life-boat. But 
I do fear a quarrelsome pilot, unused to ths sea, but preten- 
tious in command, who occupies himself in loading aboard, his 
own unserviceable relations and personal patrons, while he 
drives away the experienced seamen who know the craft and 
her voyage. Here is a peril which no life-boat can stand." 

The speech created a sensation in the Senate. Soon after, 
Grant's friends gave Sumner notice that he was no longer in 
good standing with them. When he arose that evening, in the 
Senate, to claim a usual courtesy, he was curtly answered by 
Conkling that, after what had occurred, he must know that 
courtesy was no longer applicable there. Some brief impromptu 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER (J87 

replies were made to the speech that evening. But it was 
desirable that a full defence of the President should be made 
on the floor of the Senate before adjournment, for it was 
realized that Sumner's speech, though he had not yet joined the 
Liberal Eepublican movement would become, as it did, the 
opening speech of the campaign against Grant. More time 
was needed to prepare to make answers to it and the day fixed 
for adjournment of the Senate was extended for a week, during 
which, extended replies were made by the President's friends. 
They were generally severe upon Sumner, Carpenter's and 
Chandler's being noticeably so; Logan's was the ablest. He 
dwelt on Grant's service to the country as a soldier, his stand 
for the payment of the Government bonds in gold and for 
the maintenance of a sound financial policy, subjects which 
Sumner had omitted and for which Grant was entitled to 
credit. Sumner's speech called out leading editorials in the 
daily papers. It was the first public declaration of his attitude 
toward Grant, and in the present unusual condition of politi- 
cal parties, with interests now excited by the approaching 
convention, many people who were accustomed to follow his 
leadership were waiting to learn what his position would be. 

Upon the work of the convention it had little effect. It came 
too late to affect the nomination of Grant. The delegates were 
already chosen and generally were committed, to their constit- 
uents, as to the vote they would give ; and they could not be 
changed now. Grant was nominated on the sixth day of June, 
without a dissenting vote. 

The chief contest of the convention was over the nomination 
for Vice-President, between Colfax of Indiana and Wilson of 
Massachusetts. The former had early in the year announced 
that he would not be a candidate for renomination and the 
latter then appeared and had made much progress. So when 
Colfax reappeared in the field, shortly before the convention, 
he found a vigorous contest awaiting him. The result was 
close, but Sumner's colleague, in the Senate, was nominated 
on the first ballot. Owing to the now well-known opposition 
of Sumner to Grant, it was important to have the candidate 
for Vice-President in New England and this contributed to the 
success of Wilson. 

The platform adopted, declared for complete liberty and 
equal civil rights for the colored people and the mainte- 
nance of all the recent Constitutional Amendments, thus upon 
the issues in which Sumner felt most interest, placing itself 
upon the same plane as the Liberal Eepublicans. The Demo- 
cratic Convention met at Baltimore on the ninth day of July 



688 ^IFJ^ OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and, accepting Greeley and Brown as their candidates, they 
adopted, without modification, the platform of the Liberal 
Eepublicans. Thus Sumner, though disappointed by the nom- 
ination of Grant, saw all the political parties united on the 
issue for equal rights of all men, of every color, for which he 
had waged such a long and persistent warfare. 

The campaign opened with unusual promptness. Within 
two weeks of the adjournment of the Democratic convention, 
Conkling made the opening speech for the Eepublicans at 
Cooler's Institute in New York City. He had not made a 
reply to Sumner in the Senate but reserved it for this more 
elaborate occasion. Senator Sherman and other leaders took 
the field with equal promptness and before the end of the 
month the campaign had become general. The day after the 
Democratic convention adjourned, a considerable number of 
the leading colored citizens of Washington addressed a letter 
to Sumner, asking his advice as to the course they should pur- 
sue. He delayed an answer until July twenty-ninth and then in 
an open letter, after contrasting the relation of Greeley and 
Grant to the colored race, he advised them, as he expressed the 
purpose to do, to vote for Greeley. Two days later he was an- 
swered in an open letter by Speaker Blaine, arraigning him as 
recreant to both party and principle, in so advising colored 
voters. Sumner answered under date of August fifth in another 
open letter. 

To this charge of personal recreancy, he answered with an 
honest burst of feeling, which revealed the cause of his own 
opposition : " The personal imputation you make upon me I 
repel with the indignation of an honest man. I was a faithful 
supporter of the President until somewhat tardily awakened 
by his painful conduct on the island of San Domingo, involv- 
ing seizure of the war power in violation of the Constitution 
and indignity to the Black Republic in violation of Interna- 
tional Law ; and when I remonstrated against these intolerable 
outrages, I was set upon by those acting in his behalf. Such 
is the origin of my opposition. I could not have done less with- 
out failure in that duty which is with me the rule of life." 

To the Speaker's reminder that he had now entered into 
company with Secessionists and with the confederates of his 
former assailant, Preston S. Brooks, he indignantly retorted: 
" What has Preston Brooks to do with the Presidential elec- 
tion? Never while a sufferer, did anybody hear me speak of 
him in unkindness ; and now after the lapse of more than half 
a generation, I will not unite with you in dragging him from 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER GS9 

the grave, where he sleeps, to aggravate the passions of a polit- 
ical conflict, and arrest the longing for concord." 

Until near the middle of August Sumner remained in Wash- 
ington, holding himself aloof from any further participation 
in politics, but plied with letters, some of them from Greeley 
and the leaders of the new movement thanking him for the 
stand he had taken, others pressing him to make speeches for 
the ticket in various States, others from old friends commenting 
variously upon his speech in the Senate. Some of them spoke 
approvingly, others in kindness differed from him. Even those 
differing from him generally agreed that his motives were good. 
To several friends, as with G. W. Curtis, of Harper's Weekly 
and Henry Wilson, his colleague, he expressed regret that he 
had not been able to bring them to his way of thinking. But 
there was no break between them. The situation was wearing 
upon him, growing old and almost sick as he was. 

He was working long hours upon the edition of his Works. 
Life seemed to be passing and he was anxious to have this work 
completed. The twelve to fifteen hours a day he was devoting 
himself, in this way, to labor, was too much for one in his con- 
dition of health. It will be remembered that he had a serious 
sick spell, during the previous year, after his first speech against 
annexation ; and again recurring symptoms during the last ses- 
sion, in the debate on the French Arms question ; and he had 
been compelled at other times to seek the advice of a physician. 
He found his heart affected and quiet and absence of excite- 
ment necessary. 

The hard lines in which his last days were cast were telling 
upon his personal appearance. The noble form appeared broken 
and its muscular elasticity was gone and his capacity for ex- 
erton seemed exhausted. Those who remembered him " stand- 
ing sturdily upon their old platforms, almost arrogant in the 
consciousness of intellectual and physical strength, full of 
vigor and dilating with the courage of opinion, the Ajax about 
whom the young men of Massachusetts rallied for many a moral 
contest, and followed in the onset of many a forlorn political 
hope" saw sad changes in him now, that silenced the spirit of 
criticism and awakened only tender recollections of the great 
work he had undertaken and had performed so well. 

On the evening of August ninth, 1872, the colored people 
of the District united to make his departure from Washington 
the occasion of a serenade. They gathered at his house, in 
number, one of the largest that had been seen in Washington 
for such a purpose, and Sumner being introduced by Dr. 
Augusta, one of their race, responded in a brief speech. He 



690 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

reminded them that for the first time in our history all politi- 
cal parties were pledged to the equality of all before the law. 
Of the early passage of a Civil Rights Bill to relieve them from 
any exclusion or discrimination on account of color, he felt 
there was now no doubt. This, he added, was a strange contrast 
to their condition when he entered upon his public duties in 
Washington, more than twenty years before. Then slavery was 
in the ascendency, giving the law to all the usages of life. Now 
the courtroom, the school-house, the horse-car and the ballot 
box were opened, never to be closed against them again. 

Soon after he reached Boston, he was formally invited, by 
the Liberal Republican State Committee, to address a public 
meeting in Faneuil Hall. He had purposed to take no farther 
part in the campaign, but he felt he could not resist this new 
pressure from old friends at home. He prepared a speech for 
the occasion, but recurring symptoms of his old complaint 
caused him to hesitate at the attempt to deliver it. Death he 
did not fear so much ; but he had been repeatedly warned that 
paralysis, accompanied by physical and perhaps mental dis- 
ability, might be the result of his disease. The latter result 
he especially dreaded. At last he gave up his contemplated 
purpose of speaking in Faneuil Hall and handed the manu- 
script of his speech to the committee, with permission to pub- 
lish it. It accordingly appeared in the newspapers, though it 
was never delivered. 

In it he reviewed briefly the character of the two candidates, 
Greeley and Grant, and the reasons he had before urged for 
opposing the latter and dwelt at length on the question of grant- 
ing amnesty to all the Confederates and the complete recon- 
ciliation of the North and the South. This was the new issue 
that was brought forward and was being pressed by the friends 
of the Liberal movement. Sumner while pressing for the de- 
struction of slavery and for equal rights had never ceased to 
hope for a reunited country under better conditions. 

Then by advice of his physician and near friends, to seek 
rest and avoid all excitement, he sailed for Europe on the third 
day of September, 1872, not to return until after the election. 
It was to be his last trip abroad.* His speech appeared in the 
newspapers of the day after his departure. 

* The day before sailing lie made his will giving, to Henry W. Long- 
fellow, Francis V. Balch and Edward L. Pierce, as trustees, all his papers, 
manuscripts and letter books; and to them three thousand dollars to com- 
plete the publication of his works; to the library of Harvard College his 
books and autographs ; to the City of Boston "for the Art Museum his 
pictures and engravings; to his "friends of many years Plenry W. Long- 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 691 

Before he left, the result of the election in North Carolina, 
the first State to vote, and therefore the preliminary test of the 
drift of popular feeling, was known ; it indicated the re-elec- 
tion of Grant. Before his return, the victory was complete and 
Greeley was overwhelmingly defeated. All of the Northern 
States and all of the Southern States, but six, voted for Grant. 
This crushing defeat was too much. Greeley turned from it to 
plunge anew into the work of editing The Tribune, where at 
least he had stood without a peer. But coming as it did after 
years of hard work and incessant care, following the strain of 
a heated campaign and only a few days after the death of his 
devoted wife, the heroic mind failed and his light went out. 
lie died on the twenty-seventh day of the same November that 
witnessed his defeat, — only three days after Sumner landed 
on his return from Europe. 

There were various causes for this result of the election. 
Grant was a tried man in the public service. His military 
record was a great one and the nation's gratitude for his suc- 
cess in saving the union was still warm. Shiloh, Vicksburg, 
Chattanooga and Appomattox were fruitful subjects for ef- 
fective appeals during the campaign. Greeley's triumphs were 
all those of peace. Troubles in the Southern States were still 
feared and it was felt that the strong arm of the soldier was 
needed to hold the lawless elements there in check. During his 
first term, Grant had gained the confidence of the financial 

fellow and Samuel G. Howe" his bronzes; to the daughters of Longfel- 
low, two thousand dollars and a like amount to those of Howe and James 
T. Furness of Philadelphia 'in token of his gratitude for the friendship 
their parents had shown him'; to Hannah R. .Jacobs only surviving sister 
of his mother an annuity of five hundred dollars for life; a ' provision for 
perpetual care of his mother's lot at Mount Auburn ' ; one thousand dol- 
lars to Harvard College for an annual prize for the best dissertation by 
any student " on universal peace and the methods by which war may be 
permanently suspended." And to this bequest he added: " I do this in 
the hope of drawing the attention of students to the practicability of or- 
ganizing peace among nations which I sincerely believe may be done. 
I cannot doubt that the same modes of decision which now prevail be- 
tween towns and between individuals, between smaller communities, 
may be extended to nations." All the residue of his estate, real and per- 
sonal, he directed to be sold and the proceeds to be distributed, half 
to his sister Julia, and half to Harvard College, " for the benefit of the 
College library", 'his desire being that the income should be applied: 
to the purchasing of books relating to politics and fine arts.' He added 
"This bequest is made in filial regard for the College. In selecting 
especially the library, I am governed by the consideration that all my life 
I have been a user of books, and having few of my own, I have relied on 
the libraries of friends and on public libraries; so that what I now do is 
only a return for what I have freely received." This will was the one 
admitted to probate after his death. 



693 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

circles, by his stan(J against repudiation, in any form, and for 
the payment of the national debt in gold. He was considered 
a safe man upon these issues, that were still felt to be in- 
volved. On the other hand there was a want of confidence in 
Greeley. He was felt to be untried and of an experimental 
disposition. Some personal peculiarities, that were dwelt on 
by campaign speakers, heightened this impression of him. Such 
traits do not impress plain business men favorably. Another 
cause for the size of Grant's majority was the dissatisfaction of 
old line Democrats with the course of their party in taking up 
a Eepublican candidate. After they saw the tide was setting 
towards defeat, this class abstained from the campaign and 
even refused to vote. 

The objections that Sumner urged against Grant were gener- 
ally conceded, even by his supporters, but they were objections 
that appealed to a Senator or a Congressman, rather than to 
the plain people. His course towards San Domingo and Haiti 
was a mistake and indefensible. He had appointed too many 
relatives to office ; and he had accepted gifts and had placed the 
givers in high positions in the public service; both in bad 
taste. He had appointed unfit men to office and permitted a 
favored few to control too much patronage, creating well 
grounded complaints of the rings that disgraced his admin- 
istration. He had shown a good deaj of a disposition to do as 
he pleased, without considering much the feelings or the opin- 
ions of others, and if they opposed him to use his authority to 
displace them, as he had done in frequent instances with mem- 
bers of his Cabinet and with Sumner and his Committee ; this 
was not with proper regard for the limitations of his own 
office or the rights of others. But all these things could be 
urged with little effect to a popular audience. It was much 
easier to arouse enthusiasm over the recollections of the war, 
when many of his soldiers were scattered through the audience. 

Sumner provoked disagreeable antagonisms, by opposing 
Grant, which embittered the remaining months of his life. It 
separated him from his party. And it encouraged some 
friends of Grant within it, who were more than willing to 
exhibit their hostility in various ways, with the hope of thereby 
gaining new favor with their chief. It also deprived Sumner of 
an influ?nce, within the party, that he might have easily exerted, 
notwithstanding all that Grant could do. Grant was only one 
of the party, though its leader; beyond him was the great 
Eepublican organization, which revered and honored Sumner 
and with whose principles he was in entire harmony. He 
should not have allowed one man to separate him from it. He 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 093 

went too far, when he confounded Grant with the party, and for 
the sake of defeating one was willing to defeat both. 

But on the other hand Sumner was never a politician. He 
felt that by supporting Grant a principle would be sacrificed. 
He believed that Grant had demonstrated his unfitness for the 
office and that having done so, he should not be returned to it. 
He thought Greeley was a better representative of Republican 
principles and that in his hands those principles would be safe. 
Hence he unhesitatingly followed the course that he believed 
at the time was right. - How much this conviction was modified 
by farther reflection it is hard to determine. Later events in- 
dicate that both Sumner and the President regretted the length 
to which they were carried in the heat of their controversy. 
Both were great and good men and have deserved well of their 
country and have an enduring place in her history. And there 
is reason to believe Sumner afterwards felt that Greeley's suc- 
cess would in the end have subjected the nation to Democratic 
rule and to a ruinous reaction. At that time this would have 
been most unfortunate. Many good men thought they foresaw 
it and believing that Greeley, as President, could not prevent it, 
even though having confidence in him, they voted against him. 



CHAPTER XLII 

LAST TRIP TO EUROPE — THE BATTLE FLAG BILL — RESOLUTION" 
OF CENSURE — SICKNESS 

Sumner reached Liverpool on the fourteenth clay of Septem- 
ber, 18T2, after a voyage of eleven days. On the voyage he 
experienced his customary sea-sickness. It drew from him 
the remark that the sea was always a nuisance to him and he 
would never be content until it was filled up so that he could 
travel everywhere on dry ground. But he enjoyed comparative 
freedom from the pains of the heart and pressure on the brain, 
which he experienced in Washington and Boston. His thoughts 
on the voyage were saddened by the evidence of party ill-will 
he had experienced, at home, on account of his opposition to 
Grant. He could not claim generosity from old acquaintances, 
who had turned against him after enjoying favors at his hands, 
for he had only acted from a sense of duty in what he did; 
but he did claim justice and this he felt he had not received. 
For he said he never in his life acted under a more irresistible 
sense of duty, than in opposing annexation, which had brought 
him the anger of the Pi'esidential rings, with the strange co- 
operation of some Massachusetts people, calling themselves his 
friends. Among these he counted Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who 
had accepted the place on the San Domingo Commission, when 
Professor Agassiz refused it, and William Lloyd Garrison, who 
had assailed him in his paper. 

To his friend Edward L. Pierce, to whom he confided this 
feeling, he afterwards wrote from Paris, showing that it still 
haunted him : " I have had much occasion latterly to meditate 
on the justice and friendship of this world, especially when 
crossed by the mandate of political power. I know the integrity 
of my conduct and the motives of my life. Xever were they 
more clear or absolutely blameless than now. But never, in 
the worst days of slavery, have I been more vindictively pur- 
sued or more falsely misrepresented." 

On reaching Liverpool, he was subjected to a new annoyance, 
from his connection with the Liberal movement. He learned 
that while he was upon the ocean and without any previous 
consent from him, the Liberal and Democratic parties had nom- 
inated him for Governor of Massachusetts. The nomination 
G9-i 




From a Photograph tak 






^^ 



y2tyu.^i^ 



LIFE OF CHARLES BVMNER 



695 



was made for the purpose of attracting votes in the State to 
Greeley. Upon learning it, he, at once, telegraphed and wrote 
declining the nomination. He also wrote privately insisting 
that his declination must be respected. His name was accord- 
ingly taken from the ticket and that of his friend F. W. Bird 
substituted for it. The annoyance caused by this unauthorized 
use of his name; aggravated his sickness. 

He had resolved, so far as he could, while he remained in 
Europe, to drive politics from his thoughts, convinced that it 
was provoking his troubles. He therefore ceased reading 
American newspapers entirely, during his stay abroad; and to 
remove himself still farther from touch with American affairs, 
he determined to leave England for the Continent and spend 
his time in Paris. He hoped, in this way, to separate him- 
self as much as possible from all the turmoil and excitement 
from which he could find no escape at home ; and, in quiet, find 
strength and recovery. 

He was met on landing at Liverpool by the Secretary of the 
American Club and spent one day there in his company visiting 
some places of interest and then went directly to London, where 
he remained a week. Two days he gave to the British Museum 
and two more to the Bethnal Green Museum. The remainder 
of the time he spent visiting streets and buildings and seeing 
galleries and old friends. He was admitted to the Athenaeum 
Club, a favorite resort when he was in London. He found his 
friend William W. Story, the sculptor, son of Judge Story,, 
spending the season with his family in England, near Carlisle^ 
and Hugh McCulloch, the Secretary of the Treasury, under 
President Johnson, another old acquaintance, in London. Let- 
ters came from his English friends, Robert Ingham, inviting 
him to Newcastle and from the Duchess of Argyll asking him 
to Inverary, but he delayed, hoping to see them" on his return 
from the Continent. He went^on to Paris. 

Sumner remained in Paris 'a month, mainly occupied with 
visiting galleries and places of interest and in collecting rare 
books and curios, for which he had a great taste, but not a 
very accurate judgment, as to their value. It was here that he 
first found real rest and physical improvement, by a complete 
diversion from affairs at home. He met tlie American Minister, 
Washburn, Morrison R. Waite afterwards Chief Justice, Ex- 
Governor Bullock of Massachusetts and others of his country- 
men. He was especially indebted to Elliot C. Cowdin, a New 
York merchant, formerly of Boston, but now representing his 
house in Paris where he had his family and a residence. A 
place at his table was always ready for Sumner; and his friends 



696 LIP^ O^ CHARLES SUMNER 

were invited to dine with him. Sumner was very fond of 
Mr. Cowdin's children and particularly of one, little Alice, who 
had, as he said, '' so sweet a name." He met President Thiers, 
dined with him at the Palais d'Elysee, saw his friend and 
correspondent, the Count of Paris, and Gambetta. To the last, 
in conversation, he said, " you wish to found a republic in 
France without religion. I do not know your country well 
enough to express an opinion, but in America we would con- 
sider such an undertaking chimerical and doomed to certain 
defeat." At a dinner given him by M. de Corcelle he met 
Eemusat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Gouland the 
Minister of Finance. Sumner spoke French fluently and was 
everywhere received with attention. An intelligent French 
gentleman wrote : " I do not believe that an American has ever 
made so great an impression in France." And this good im- 
pression was mutual, for Sumner left France this time, with 
a higher opinion of the French character, than ever before. 

He left Paris on October nineteenth, returning to London by 
the twenty-sixth. He stopped on the way at Brussels, Antwerp 
and The Hague, at the latter place spending two days with Mot- 
ley. He met Motley again at Mr. Sheridan's, Frampton Court, 
Dorchester, with other guests, among them the Queen of Hol- 
land, when Motley's little granddaughter was christened. He 
remained in London until the eleventh day of November, oc- 
cupying his time in visiting private libraries and collections of 
antiquities and porcelain, among others being admitted to a 
private view of the porcelain and pictures of Buckingham Pal- 
ace. In London, as in Paris, he made purchases of curios. 
Among other attentions which he received. Lord Granville came 
from Walmer Castle to London to entertain him at dinner, and 
Dean and Lady Stanley entertained him at breakfast, with 
William W. Story, at the Westminster deanery, the morning 
he left London. Lady Stanley was the sister of Sir Frederick 
Bruce, the British Ambassador at Washington, who died sud- 
denlv in Boston, in September, 1867. Sumner had cared for 
him, in his last hours, and superintended the arrangements for 
his funeral, he being the only acquaintance he had in the city. 
Sumner had been on cordial terms with the family for many 
years, but this breakfast was to be their last meeting. 

From London, he went to visit the Duke of Devonshire 
at Chatsworth Castle and then to Rochdale to spend a night 
with John Bright. It was his last night in England. They sat 
up and talked together till after midnight, of the President and 
their trouble, of San Domingo and tlie offer of the mission to 
England, to quiet him, of London and its buildings and archi- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SU3INER 697 

tectiire, of England and her people and her great men, of the 
many friends he had there, " how sorry he was to leave it, 
nnder a sad sense that he M-ould visit it no more." His heart 
was still troubling him and there Avas a sadness and a gentleness 
noticeable in his manner that left the impression, that he felt 
himself seriously sick and "that his life of work was nearly 
ended." He did not rest well that night; and the next day, 
rough, unsettled and disagreeable, he went on to Liverpool to 
commence the homeward voyage. His ])urpose was to go farther 
north to visit the Argylls at Inverary, the Duchess had written, 
urging him to come, and the warm friendship between him and 
her family, since he first visited England and the wish to see 
them once more, induced him strongly, but at the last, he felt 
he could not spare the time. 

His friends urged him to stay longer in Europe. William W. 
Story was delighted to meet and visit with him once more. It 
seemed as if the intervening years were blotted out and both 
were young again. He had " the same pleased astonishment at 
all he saw " and " the same stern and unflinching adherence to 
his friends." And he patronized William as pleasantly as he 
did, when he was twenty and the world before him, so that he 
was delighted and laughed into youth again. Doubtless the 
merry laugh of William recalled his father's, and took Sumner 
back to the days when he dropped into Judge Story's home, in 
Cambridge, so familiarly. Under such influences, he grew vis- 
ibly stronger; and William urged him to spend the winter in 
England or go with him to Rome and "wander over the old 
places ". Once Sumner seemed to yield, but only for a moment. 
His answer at last was the same as to Bright and Governor 
Bullock, he must go back to the Senate and to work. And so 
he went forth, from the sight of his friends beyond the sea 
forever. How much those friends and those scenes meant to 
him, warm-hearted and affectionate, and yet without family and 
without home, and how much the thought of them came into 
his hard, toilsome life, to ease the burden and brighten the way, 
can hardly be told. 

The voyage homeward was a rough one. For two days a 
violent gale blew and the next the sailors rescued the crew 
of another ship that had been disabled. He landed in New 
York on the twenty-sixth day of November, after a voyage of 
twelve days. One of the purposes of his trip had been to con- 
sult Dr. Brown-Sequard ; but he had suddenly left Paris for 
New York, before Sumner's arrival. Sumner consulted him 
there upon his return to America and then went to Wash- 
insrton. 



698 J-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

At the opening of Congress he was in his seat, feeling 
much improved in health by his trip. The change of scene and 
the journey had done him good. He felt disappointed at the 
result of the election. To those with whom he talked, in con- 
fidence, he expressed surprise. He could not understand why 
reasons that seemed so conclusive to him that Grant should 
not have been re-elected, had not been equally so to others. He 
was disappointed that his own speeches against him had not 
produced a greater effect upon the vote. But if there was any 
feeling of bitterness at this, there was no expression of it. His 
associates in the Senate remarked it at the time and after- 
wards. He had only kind words for all of them and seemed to 
accept the result as it was and wish for peace and reconciliation. 

At the opening of the Session it had been arranged that a 
motion would be made to have the Senate adjourn on the day 
of the funeral of Horace Greeley, out of respect to his memory. 
Fenton of New York was to make the motion and Sumner was 
to second it. By parliamentary tactics, the Republican major- 
ity prevented the motion being made. In some remarks that 
Sumner prepared for the occasion, which have since been pub- 
lished, he plead for reconciliation. " We are admonished ", he 
said " to forget the strifes of party and to remember only truth, 
country and mankind * * * In other days the horse and 
armor of the departed chieftain have been buried in the grave, 
where he reposed. So too may we bury the animosities if not 
the badges of the past." 

A few days later in a tribute to Garret Davis, a Senator f#om 
Kentucky, who had died during the recess, Sumner touched the 
same chord again. Davis was a man of conspicuous ability and 
industry and of unquestioned integrity. Under circumstances 
of peculiar trial he had been unfaltering in his devotion to the 
Union. But he was the advocate and defender of slavery. 
Upon this subject " a certain wild independence and intensity 
of nature, which made him unaccommodating and irrepres- 
sible " came out so conspicuously that he yielded neither " to 
argument nor to the logic of events ". He " spoke last for 
slavery '\ While paying a high tribute to his better nature, 
Sumner did not believe that, even in a eulogy, he should pass 
over this trait, without remark. But he also added, in tender- 
ness for the past : " Time is teacher and reconciler ; nor is it 
easy for any candid nature to preserve a constant austerity of 
judgment towards persons. As evening approaches, the me- 
ridian heats lose their intensity. While abiding firmly in the 
truth as we saw it, tliere may be charity and consideration for 
those who did not see it as we saw it. * * * In proportion as 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 699 

I quit myself, and as time sweeps me far from our combats, I 
enter without difficulty into a serene and pleasant apprecia- 
tion of ideas and sentiments which do not belong to me. * * * 
Here let me be frank. Nothing could make any speech for 
slavery tolerable to me ; but when I think how much opinions 
are determined by the influences about us, so that a change of 
birth and education might have made the Abolitionist a par- 
tisan of slavery and the partisan of slavery an Abolitionist, I 
feel that while always unrelenting towards the wrong, we cannot 
be insensible to individual merits." 

Sumner had two aspirations when he entered upon the work 
of this session that he wished to see promoted by legislation, — 
equal civil rights for the blacks, and a removal of the animos- 
ities created by the war. He hoped for a complete recon- 
ciliation between the North and the South. Both parties ad- 
vocated these two measures in the late campaign. He was for 
carrying them out in good faith. 

He introduced his Civil Eights Bill again. He also intro- 
duced another bill, which seems unimportant to us, that could 
do no harm, as he thought, and would aid to restore harmony 
between the sections. But it was destined to develop conse- 
quences that were altogether unthought of when introduced. 
The text of this bill was as follows: 

" A Bill to regulate the Army-Eegistcr and the Regimental 
Colors of the United States. Whereas the national unity and 
good will among fellow-citizens can be assured only through 
obrtvion of past differences and it is contrary to the usage of 
civilized nations to perpetuate the memory of civil war: There- 
fore, Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That 
the names of battles with fellow-citizens shall not be continued 
in the Army-Eegister, or placed on the regimental colors of the 
United States." 

Sumner had twice before introduced this measure, in sub- 
stance; once in 1862, when after the capture of Williamsburg, 
General McClellan asked if it would be proper for regiments 
to place the names of battles in which they were engaged, on 
their regimental colors. Sumner introduced in the Senate a 
resolution that it would not and General Scott, then living, 
commended it as " noble." Again, in 18(15 he introduced in the 
Senate a resolution, that in the Nation's Capitol there should 
be no picture of a victory in battle over fellow-citizens ; which 
General Eobert Anderson, another high military authority, 
commended. There was no criticism of Sumner's action or 
motives on either of these occasions. This had been in accotd 



700 J^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

with the practice of all civilized nations, ancient and modern. 
And the reason for it was obvious. No soldier while fighting 
the battles of his country should be reminded by the flag under 
which he served of his previous defeats. It would neither be 
wise nor generous. Every one should be made to feel him- 
self the equal of all others, the citizen of a common country, 
with an equal pride in its glory, and not as a defeated foe. 

In speaking on this subject, after Sumner's death, Carl 
Schurz, himself a soldier of high rank, educated in the military 
schools of Europe, said : " All civilized governments of our days 
have instinctively followed the same dictate of wisdom and 
patriotism. The Irishman, when fighting for old England at 
Waterloo, was not to behold on the red cross floating above him 
the name of the Boyne. The Scotch Highlander, when standing 
in the trenches of Sebastopol, was not by the colors of his regi- 
ment to be reminded of Culloden. No French soldier at Aus- 
terlitz or Solferino had to read upon the tricolor any remi- 
niscence of the Vendee. No Hungarian at Sadowa was taunted 
by an Austrian banner with the surrender of Villagos. No 
German regiment, from Saxony or Hanover, charging under 
the iron hail of Gravelotte, was made to remember, by words 
written on a Prussian standard, that the black eagle had con- 
quered them at Koniggratz and Langensalza. Should the son 
of South Carolina, when at some future day defending the 
Republic against some foreign foe, be reminded by an inscrip- 
tion on the colors floating over him, that under this flag the 
gun was fired that killed his father at Gettysburg? Should 
this great and enlightened Eepublic, proud of standing in the 
front of human progress, be less wise, less large-hearted, than 
the ancients were two thousand years ago and the kingly gov- 
ernments of Europe are to-day ? " 

Sumner thought not. He believed that all occasion for strife 
and distrust between the North and the South had passed away 
and that the time had come when they should grow together 
again in heart as they were indissolubly joined together by 
law. And this generous impulse quickly found an answering 
response among the Southern people. " It was certainly a 
gracious act toward the South " said one of them, — " though 
unhappily it jarred upon the sensibilities of the people at the 
other extreme of the Union and estranged from him the great 
body of his political friends — to propose to erase from the ban- 
ners of the national army the mementoes of the bloody inter- 
necine struggle, which might be regarded as assailing the pride 
or wounding the sensibilities of the Southern people. That 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 7OI 

proposal will never be forgotten by that people so long as the 
name of Charles Sumner lives in the memory of man." 

But this act met a different reception in the North. The 
Legislature of Massachusetts was in extra session, called to- 
gether to pass some bills made necessary by the great fire of 
that year, in Boston. One Hoyt, the member from Athol, who 
had been a soldier, but with no particular army record, intro- 
duced a resolution censuring Sumner's bill as " insulting the 
soldiers " and " meeting the unqualified condemnation of the 
people" of Massachusetts. The resolution was unexpected; 
it came in, without previous discussion, among the mem- 
bers, of the propriety of such a step and was at once re- 
ferred to a committee. The committee announced no public 
hearings upon it and no one was heard but Hoyt and two of his 
friends. The committee divided upon it, three members being 
for and three against it ; and it was thus reported. The Legis- 
lature was to adjourn the next day after it was reported. It 
was discussed, the evening it was reported, and the next morn- 
ing. There was a good deal of loose declamation about insult- 
ing the soldiers, tearing down their tombstones and ploughing 
up the National cemeteries. How other nations had treated the 
question and the precedents they had established was not dis- 
cussed. Members were apparently not familiar with the sub- 
ject. What Sumner's motive or purpose was, in introducing the 
bill, was not known ; an opportunity was not given him to 
explain. 

A motion was made to postpone the resolution indefinitely. 
It was supposed to have carried by the casting vote of the 
Speaker, but a recount being made, it was found that the 
motion was lost, by a majority of one. The resolution was then 
passed by the House. It was rushed through the Senate, the 
afternoon of the same day. And thus was Charles Sumner cen- 
sured by the Legislature of Massachusetts ! 

The fear of incurring the displeasure of the soldier vote, 
which was then large, naturally influenced some Members to 
vote for it. But there was a bitter feeling on the Repub- 
lican side towards Sumner, for his part against Grant. 
The election was only recently over and party feeling at the 
time ran high. Sumner was treated, on the impulse of the 
moment, as having abandoned his principles and gone over to 
the Democrats, and his bill as a Democratic measure. There 
was a disposition to punish him for it. And this feeling more 
than any other caused its adoption. 

But in every community there is a class of educated and sober- 
minded people, who are not to be blown about by every gust of 



703 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMMER 

political excitement. Sumner had enjoyed, in large measure, 
the confidence of this class in Massachusetts. His record in the 
Senate had been a matter of pride to them and, though they 
may have differed from him in his estimate of Grant, they were 
not willing that he should be treated with injustice. A resolu- 
tion of censure passed upon him at once arrested their attention 
and the cause was no sooner known, than a movement was or- 
ganized, headed by John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet, to have 
the incoming Legislature rescind it. 

Petitions were circulated and they were signed by more than 
five thousand names. The number could have been increased 
indefinitely. It was the character of the petitioners that was 
chiefly remarkable. Perhaps no prayer to a Legislature ever 
had so many great names attached to it, authors, scholars, 
divines, men of all professions, judges and statesmen, of the 
highest rank in the country, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, 
Agassiz, Wendell Phillips, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Ex- 
Governor Claflin, Ex-Governor Washburn, A. H. Eice, soon to 
be Governor, Henry Wilson, Vice-President elect, Henry L. 
Pierce, the Congressman of Boston, were some of those within 
the State ; William Cullen Bryant, Fred Douglass, Chief Justice 
Chase and Governor Xoyes, of Ohio, were some of those without. 
A remonstrance was also presented. 

The Legislature met in January, 1873. The petitions were 
referred to the Committee on Federal Eelations, which gave 
public hearings to both sides. Ex-Governor Claflin, Ex-Gov- 
ernor Washburn, Eev. James Freeman Clarke and Hon. Edward 
L. Pierce argued the question for the petitioners; Hoyt, the 
mover of this resolution, William Lloyd Garrison and Julia 
Ward Howe, appeared and spoke for the remonstrants. Since 
the days of his young manhood, Sumner had known the last 
two. Garrison's paper, the Liberator, was the first for which 
he subscribed; and since 1835 he had continued his sup- 
port to it and its editor. But as the tide of years rolled back 
and he saw the visits in those early days to Xew York and the 
home of the Misses Ward, the " Three Graces of Bond Street ", 
where he entered with a young man's enthusiasm into the 
charmed circle of their wit and beauty, and recalled once more 
the tender sentiment of the past, it must have chafed him to see 
the last of the " lovely triumvirate " in this company. 

The committee reported against rescinding the resolution 
and both Houses voted to adopt their report. The strength 
of the election prejudice was still too strong. 

The resolution of censure came upon Sumner with prostrat- 
ing effect. " Only the sea and tiger," he wrote Eev. James Free- 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 703 

man Clarke, who had promptly criticised in his pulpit the 
resolution of the Legislature and defended Sumner's bill, " are 
as blind and senseless, in ferocity, as party hate." He was now 
without party lines in the Senate. He was not a Democrat — 
never had been ; and the call for the Eepublican caucus limited 
its membership to those who had supported Grant and the plat- 
form. Hostility seemed to be directed at him. Schurz was 
given a place on the Committee on Foreign Eelations by the 
Democrats, and Banks was allowed to retain his Committee 
appointment, by the Republicans in the House. Both had been 
prominent in the movement for Greeley. Cut o£E thus in Wash- 
ington and censured at home, avoided by many he had for- 
merly led, Sumner's position was unpleasant. It preyed upon 
his mind. 

He was in no physical condition to withstand it. All the 
improvement he had gained by his trip to Europe disappeared 
and the heart and brain troubles returned, in aggravated forms. 
He became seriously sick. The attacks of angina pectoris be- 
came so frequent as to average one each week and increased in 
length and intensity. There was the pressure on the brain at- 
tended with pains about the spine, neck and shoulders. His 
physician. Dr. J. T. Johnson, of Washington, attended him 
twice each day; and besides, daily reports were made to Dr. 
Brown-Sequard, in New York, and his advice received as to 
treatment. He could walk with difficulty, leaning upon a cane, 
in the house ; it pained him to sit and he was finally obliged to 
take his bed. 

He read some and was glad to see friends who called ; their 
talk generally led to his recent trip to Europe, and the persons 
and places he visited. It withdrew his thoughts from politics. 
But to a few, those nearest to him, as Schurz and Wilson, he 
revealed his deep disappointment, at the storm of obloquy that 
his Battle Flag Bill had raised in Massachusetts. The days of 
that winter sat sad and dark upon him. He was obliged to 
give up all work, even that upon his '' book ", as he called the 
collected edition of his speeches, which he was publishing and 
longed to see completed. His life, filled with work and political 
struggle and strife, had not been a peculiarly happy one and 
sometimes he longed for a home with a little less friction in it. 
" If my works were completed and my Civil Eights Bill passed," 
he said one day to Wilson as they sat alone, " no visitor could 
enter that door that would be more welcome than death." For 
these causes he would ask strength again ; and now a new wish 
had come, to appear in the Senate once more, and defend his 
Battle Flao: Bill. He "elt that he had been misunderstood. 



704 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

and unjustly condemned. Massachusetts, he said, had led in 
the battle for freedom and equality ; and he wished to see her 
lead again, " in smoothing the wrinkled front of war ". He 
wrote to Wilson asking that the consideration of his bill be 
postponed until he would be able to be present ; and his request 
was granted. 

From the nineteenth day of December until the middle of 
March he was not in the Senate. He went there at that time to 
present, according to custom, the credentials of his colleague, 
Geo. S. Boutwell, who had been elected to succeed Wilson, now 
the Vice-President. When Sumner advanced with Boutwell 
to the Speaker's chair, where the oath was administered, he 
appeared weak and sick, leaning heavily upon his cane. And he 
was not able to attend the meetings of the Senate again that 
session. With the coming of spring and the bright and beauti- 
ful days, with warm sunshine and pleasant air, which wake trees 
and flowers and birds to such joyous life in that climate, a new 
vigor seemed to be infused into him. He commenced, by taking 
short walks or drives and increasing their length. On the first 
of May he attended the wedding of his physician and called on 
Chief Justice Chase. The talk with Chase of old friends, old 
scenes and old conflicts was " intimate and affectionate ". Six 
days later Chase died, very suddenly, in New York, and Sum- 
ner was asked to be one of the pallbearers, but was obliged to 
decline. Two weeks later, he was able to do a little work on his 
" book ". Gradually health and strength, in a measure, re- 
turned and by the last of July the physicians and medicines 
disappeared. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

RETURN TO WORK — LAST SUMMER AT BOSTON — IN SENATE AGAIN 
— ATTENDS DINNER OF NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY OF NEW 
YORK LAST DAYS — DEATH — EULOGIES. 

Sumner remained in Washington till the last days of July, 
at work upon his " book ". This required frequent visits to the 
Congressional Library. It was quiet, congenial employment 
for him and took his mind from politics and excitement. This 
was what he needed. While his general health had become fair, 
he found he could not stand excitement and therefore avoided 
politics even in conversation. His friends urged him to make 
another trip to Europe, but he would not listen to this. In the 
purchase of rare books and manuscripts and art treasures, 
while there the summer before, he had expended about six thou- 
sand dollars. The most of this he had borrowed ; for the modest 
fortune, inherited mostly at his mother's death, he kept invested 
as a permanent capital, upon which he did not wish to draw. 
He was always restive when in debt. He now hoped by lectur- 
ing, the coming fall, to earn the money to pay this off and be 
free again. 

When pressed to go to Europe, he wrote : " I am yet in debt 
for my European trip last autumn, and no temptation can 
make me repeat this indiscretion, and reduce still more my 
small capital. Evidently you do not consider my expenses, — 
my house, clerk hire here — salary to proof readers at Cam- 
bridge, my doctor's bills (two visits daily for months), with 
Dr. Brown-Sequard's account; also poor relations. How to 
meet these, even with my increased pay, I know not." 

Sumner had partly made arrangements with Eedpath's 
bureau for engagements to lecture, when his friends discovered 
it. The subject he had chosen was the "The Unity of the 
Republic " ; and he had done some work upon his lecture. His 
physician. Dr. Brown-Sequard thought he was equal to the 
strain. But his friends thought differently and urgently ad- 
vised against it. He admitted he needed "rest and play 
and friendship " and regretfully undertook the work. Wendell 
Phillips, who had been an extensive lecturer and was familiar 
with the hardships of the work, was especially active in dis- 
705 



706 I-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

suadiug from it. Seeing that the debt was the worrying cause, 
he procured Henry L. Pierce to pay it and take Sumner's note 
for the amount. The engagement to lecture was then reluc- 
tantly cancelled, Sumner would rather have had the debt paid. 

This note was afterwards paid out of Sumner's estate. The 
various reports that money was raised among his friends, as 
for instance, to pay the expenses of his last trip to Europe, to 
pay this debt, and so forth, are without foundation. Sumner 
was exceedingly sensitive upon such matters and would not 
allow favors of" this kind to be shown him. He even declined 
the offer from the steamship company, of a free passage home- 
ward, on his last European trip. His sensitiveness about receiv- 
ing gifts has already been noticed. He believed that the receipt 
of such favors was not consistent with a public man's position. 
In the life of Daniel Webster, he had seen these gratuities give 
rise to ugly scandals and rude questionings, unworthy of the 
man and his position, as well as embarrassing to his friends. 

Sumner spent the time quietly, during this summer, with his 
friends and occasionally working at his book ; otherwise under- 
taking no serious employment, but keeping in mind his purpose 
to re-establish his health. " It is pleasant," he wrote, " to feel 
a sense of health, to sleep without narcotics and to move about, 
as other people, without effort or ache." Mrs. John T. Sargent 
invited him to make her house his home during his stay in 
Massachusetts ; but he declined. " The large airy room in the 
large house " was tempting, but he felt he needed retirement 
and went to his old quarters at the Coolidge House, where he 
would feel less restraint. He spent his summer there, and at 
ISTahant, where he was the guest of Longfellow and Mrs. George 
A. James, at both of whose houses he was always welcome and 
was treated almost as one of the family. One day in Septem- 
ber he and Longfellow drove to Amesbury and visited Whittier, 
on their return, dining with Ben Perley Poore at Newbury. 
He also visited Ex-Governor Claflin at ISTewtonville and Mr. 
Hooper at Cotuit, spending two or three days with each. 

While visiting Longfellow at Nahant, Sumner had a call 
from Vice-President Wilson, his former colleague in the Senate, 
whose friendship, notwithstanding differences of political 
opinion, still continued unbroken. Wilson had suffered a stroke 
of paralysis the previous spring, which had partially disabled 
him. Each was struggling on with shattered health, filling a 
high office, under the penalty of public life, that he could not 
escape observation and attention wherever he Avent, and having 
besides an unfinished book on his hands, by which he hoped to 
continue his name to posterity. It is a sad reflection on the 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 707 

uncertain fame of American statesmen that Sumner and Wilson 
after spending twenty years of hard service in one of the highest 
offices of the ISTation, where the best of life was exacted and 
given, must thus confess at its close the uncertainty of its 
rewards. Each was obliged by death to leave his book to be 
completed by others. 

George S. Hillard, another of Sumner's friends, had also 
suffered a stroke of paralysis. Sumner saw him repeatedly 
during this summer vacation and together they enjoyed their 
talks of the old days, of " The Five of Clubs,' of the members 
long gone, the refined and sensitive Cleveland; and Felton, so 
lovable, whose merry laugh came back from the past so tenderly ; 
of " Number Four, Court Street " and their old law office, with 
its visitors. The separation later, caused by Sumner's fight 
against slavery, was forgotten; and Hillard now agreed that he 
had not seen into the future so clearly. Sumner dined with 
Hillard, one evening shortly before his return to Washington. 
The domestics of the house were colored and one had been a 
slave and bore on her back the marks of her master's lash. They 
were much elated at the thought of preparing a dinner for 
Charles Sumner. Upon being told of their admiration, Sumner 
answered that it was customary, in certain places, when the din- 
ner was unusually fine, to send a glass of wine to the cook and 
asked that he might be permitted to do so on this occasion ; and 
it was done. At the close of the meal the domestics wished to 
be permitted to see Sumner and he smilingly complied with the 
request. It was a scene worthy the brush of an artist; Sum- 
ner's stalwart form, six feet three inches tall, filling the door- 
way to the kitchen, while those poor colored women, as if it 
were enough to touch the hem of his garment, came forward to 
take his hand and press it to their lips. Some of the by- 
standers could not suppress a tear ; but it was so unexpected to 
Sumner, that he soon escaped in embarrassment. 

This was an unusually happy summer for Sumner. He felt 
1lie sympathy of the people of Massachusetts coming back to 
liim, in love and confidence, as of old. His sickness and the fear 
that perhaps he might not recover had touched them with a 
sense of the injustice done him in the recent days. Old friends 
came forward to greet him and new people sought to make his 
acquaintance. They were glad to see him looking so well. He 
confessed he had not felt so well for several years. The color in 
his face was unusually clear and good; and he walked with 
comparative ease. He greeted those he met cordially and 
seemed to appreciate the warm welcome he received. On every 
side there was talk of him for another term in the Senate and 



708 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

no serious mention of any other name, though the choice was 
soon to be made. He was entertained as principal guest at four 
of the clubs in Boston, making a short speech on each occasion, 
but avoiding politics, choosing such subjects as love of country, 
the future of the Eepublic, or the Centennial Celebration and 
the return to specie payments, questions then only being 
mooted. He appeared at lectures several times, at one he pre- 
sided and, at another, came forward, at the close, to decline the 
call of the audience for him. He spoke at a meeting at the 
Merchants' Exchange, called to solicit aid for the sufferers from 
yellow fever at Memphis and Shreveport. He was made a mem- 
ber of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a place then much 
coveted by scholars. He attended a social meeting at liev. 
James Freeman Clarke's church by invitation of the pastor. 
On the way he inquired of a passenger on the stz-eet car for the 
location of the church. After answering, the passenger inquired 
if he was a stranger in the city. But a little boy on the same 
car jumped off, when Sumner alighted, to ask him to write his 
name in an autograph album, which he did, by the light of a 
street lamp. At the church he spoke briefly, directing his re- 
marks to the young folks, speaking of the possibilities of the 
future and expressing the wish that he could live in the com- 
ing generation. But a lady present reminded him later in the 
evening that, "the Lord knew better than he did when he 
ought to have been born," He was entertained by many of his 
friends and entered heartily into the occasions, both he and 
they seeming happy at his prospect of continued good health. 

He left Boston for Washington November twenty-fourth, 
1873, stopping off a few hours, in the afternoon, to attend a 
public reception, given in his honor, by the citizens of Spring- 
field and then went on; and the people of Massachusetts saw 
him no more. But it was not a parting in sadness and disap- 
pointment. His friend, Edward L. Pierce, accompanied him 
on the train from Boston, and once interrupted his reading to 
ask : " Do you not see how the heart of Massachusetts is with 
you ? " " Yes," after a moment's hesitation, he answered, " I 
expected it, but not so soon." He realized then that the resolu- 
tion of censure would be rescinded, at the coming meeting of 
the Legislature, and that for the fifth time, if he consented, 
he would be chosen to represent the State in the Senate. After 
brief stops at New York and Philadelphia he reached Wash- 
ington on November twenty-eighth. 

Sumner was present in the Senate at the opening of Congress. 
The disposition here as in Boston had been changed by his 



LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMXER 709 

illness and absence from the Senate. His colleagues gener- 
ally were glad to welcome him back and to congratulate him 
upon his return to health. But there was still a lack of cordial- 
ity, on the part of those who were peculiarly of the Administra- 
tion circle, Conkling, Logan, Morton and Carpenter. They, 
with the aid of patronage, were now the controlling set in the 
Senate. They classed him as a Democrat and refused him any 
place of consequence on the Committees. He knew the classifi- 
cation was not correct, as they did, but he made no complaint. 

Sumner this year attended the annual dinner of the New 
England Society of New York, held on the evening of the 
twenty-second of December. He had been pressed to go 
before, but declined, because of his rule not to leave Washing- 
ton, when Congress was in session, except in case of urgent 
necessity. He felt that he could now claim some relaxation 
of this rule. The President of the Society was his friend, 
Elliot C. Cowdin, who had shown him so much kindness on 
his last visit to Paris. Sumner was to be his guest while in 
New York and thus renew his pleasant acquaintance with 
" little Alice " and the rest of the family, and talk over their 
European days. 

In responding to the toast, "The Senate of the United 
States ", he made a graceful reference to his friendship with 
'Mr. Cowdin, " of many years, in Boston, New York and in a 
foreign land." This speech — his last before a general audience 
— his last except some impromptu remarks in the Senate, re- 
vealed some of the principles which guided his life. He re- 
ferred to the counsel of the venerable pastor, John Robin- 
son, to the Pilgrims, before their embarkation at Delft-Haven ; 
" to be as ready to receive the truth, at the hands of other min- 
isters, as ever they had been at his, not to close their souls to the 
truth as the Lutherans, who could not be drawn to go beyond 
what Luther saw " nor as the Calvinists, " who stuck where 
Calvin left them," " though they were precious, shining lights 
in their times, yet God had not revealed His whole will to 
them," and he was " very confident the Lord had more truth 
and light yet, to break forth out of His Holy Word." This, 
Sumner insisted, recognized the law of Human Progress, 
"which teaches the sure advance of the human family, and 
opens the vista of the ever broadening, never ending future 
on earth." 

He spoke of the poverty of the Pilgrims, their whole outfit, 
including £1,700 of trading-stock, being only £3,400, and 
humorously told of their soldier captain, Miles Standish, being 
sent to England to borrow, and was only able to raise £150, at 



710 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

fifty per cent interest. " So much," he said, with a reference 
to General Sherman, who was present, " for a valiant soldier 
on a financial expedition." " And yet," he said, " this embarka- 
tion so slender in numbers and means is illustrious beyond the 
lot of men." 

" Though this was little foreseen," he said, " in their day, it 
is plain now how it has come to pass. The highest greatness, 
surviving time and storm, is that which proceeds from the 
soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, 
with the pomp of courts and the circumstance of war, in the 
gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers 
of Truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose ex- 
ample elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man so 
that Government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people shall not perish from the earth — such harbingers can 
never be forgotten, and their renown spreads, coextensive with 
the cause they served." 

He contrasted the rulers of that time, " the foolish James " 
of England " the morose Louis the Thirteenth " of France, 
" the imbecile Philip the Third " of Spain, " the persecuting 
Ferdinand the Second " of Germany, Pope Paul the Fifth, 
Christian of Denmark and his son Christian of Xorway, 
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and a score of others whom he 
named, all so well known then and whose faces have been so 
carefully preserved by Art, with these poor Pilgrims who had 
]io artists and whose countenances are now unknown. Xone of 
the former, he declared, excepting Gustavus Adolphus " because 
he revealed a superior character ", is now remembered, " but 
with indifference or contempt. While our Pilgrims had in 
themselves that inborn virtue which was more than all else 
Ijesides, and their landing was an epoch." " The former," he 
added, " are ascending into the firmament, there to shine for- 
ever, while the latter have been long dropping into the dark- 
ness of oblivion, to be brought forth only to point a moral or to 
illustrate the fame of contemporaries whom they regarded not. 
Do I err in supposing this an illustration of the supremacy 
which belongs to the triumphs of the moral nature ? " 

" I M^ould if I could," he said, " make their example a uni- 
versal lesson, and stamp it upon the land. The conscience 
which directed them should be the guide of our public council ; 
the just and equal laws which they required should be ordained 
l)y us; and the hospitality to Truth which was their rule should 
be ours. Nor would I forget their courage and steadfastness. 
Had they turned back or wavered, I know not what would 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 711 

have been the record of this continent, but I can see clearly that 
a great example would have been lost." 

This speech, though his last, shows no diminution of his 
mental powers. Since his death it has been selected and pub- 
lished as one of the choice specimens of American eloquence. 

Sumner's reception at this banquet gave unmistakable evi- 
dence of the high place he held in New York. Owing to a de- 
lay of his train, he was late in arriving at the banquet. As he 
passed up the hall, to the place assigned him, as principal guest, 
at the right of the President, he was recognized and heartily 
cheered. He was introduced by the President as "the senior 
in consecutive service and the most eminent member of the 
Senate, whose early, varied and distinguished services in the 
cause of Freedom had made his name a household word through- 
out the world." On rising he was received with great cheering, 
the members of the Society standing. Many times during his 
speech he was interrupted by applause and at the conclusion 
the audience rose and gave cheer upon cheer. It was a re- 
ception altogether worthy of the man and his work and it 
touched him deeply. For weeks after, the effect of it was 
noticeable upon his spirits. It was an earnest of the assured 
place he was to hold in the estimation of posterity. 

Sumner remained four days in New York, enjoying the 
hospitality of Mr. Cowdin and his family. While there he was 
seized with a cold, which, with the excitement and physical 
strain incident to his visit, caused some unfavorable symptoms, 
but the kindly anxiety of Mr. Cowdin and his family quickly 
came out in the unfailing tenderness of husband and wife and 
children. Did Sumner not secretly wish he could have such 
tenderness with him always, have wife and children of his 
own, to offer kindly ministrations in sickness and when others 
met him with averted faces, to welcome him to their circle and 
say they knew that he was great and pure and good ? 

On December, twenty-sixth, he was back in Washington and 
at work. To one who wrote to him cautioning him about his 
health, he answered cheerily. " I note and value your warning. 
My case is less menacing than the Vice-President's. I have 
latterly done my eleven hours work a day." 

At the opening of the session he introduced his Civil Eights 
Bill again. On the second day of the session he moved the 
Senate to proceed to the consideration of it. But Senator 
Ferry of Connecticut objected that Edmunds of Vermont had 
asked, that it be referred to his committee, and added that he 
was not now present and that a recent decision of the Supreme 
Court had increased the doubt of the constitutionality of the 



712 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

bill. There was a discussion of the reference, Sumner objecting 
and insisting that it be disposed of promptly. But his mo- 
tion did not carry. On the twenty-seventh day of January 
1874, the bill came up again, on a motion to refer it to the 
Judiciary Committee. Sumner resisted the motion and argued 
that the "bill had already been twice before this Committee and 
had each time been reported adversely, after being held there 
many months, that the third time he had introduced it, he did 
not ask a reference on this account, that in his opinion to refer 
it now only meant delay and he was for action. But members 
of the Committee assured him that it should be promptly re- 
ported and he then withdrew his objection and it was referred. 

This was Sumner's last effort for the passage of a bill, on 
which he had labored four years. By his agitation, there had 
grown up a feeling in its favor. Each political party had ad- 
mitted its justness and the Senate was inclined in its favor. 
Though later it was passed, it was afterwards held unconstitu- 
tional by the Supreme Court, on the ground that it was legis- 
lation that belonged to the States. Its provisions have since 
been enacted in many of them. 

Sumner's interest in the attitude of the Supreme Court to- 
wards his Civil Eights Bill influenced his action upon the ap- 
pointment of a Chief Justice at this session. The President 
first nominated Roscoe Conkling, but he declined, then Wil- 
liams of Oregon, but it became apparent that his appointment 
could not be confirmed. After some hesitation, his name was 
withdrawn, by the President. He then sent to the Senate the 
name of Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts. Of his ability, there 
could be no question, but his practice as an attorney had not 
been extensive. His life had been spent largely as a politician 
and in dealing with public questions. His instability as a 
politician was well known. He had been a Whig, a Democrat 
and a Eepublican and an ultra man in each relation. He was 
a Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives at tho 
time of Sumner's first election to the Senate and the leader of 
the opposition to him. He was the Chairman of the Demo- 
cratic Convention which met at Charleston in 1860. At the 
outbreak of the war, he publicly spoke and wrote in favor of the 
right of Secession. During the war he became a Republican. 
His nomination was much of a surprise in Massachusetts. 

Sumner determined to support it. Cushing had a country 
home near Washington and an intimacy had grown up between 
them, Sumner frequently driving out to his house during the 
pleasant days of the preceding spring, when he was convales- 
cing. Their talks had been cordial and the constitutionality of 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 713 

the Civil Eights Bill had been one of their subjects. Gushing 
agreed with Sumner upon it. Owing to their friendship, Cush- 
ing's ability and their agreement on this question, in which 
Sumner took a deep interest, he determined to support the nom- 
ination, though many of his Massachusetts friends advised 
against it. His name, however, was afterwards withdrawn, by 
the President, at the request of the Eepubliean caucus, of which 
Sumner was not a member, owing to Cushing's record at the 
opening of the war and particularly on account of a letter 
which then came to light, asking the good offices of Jefferson 
Davis in favor of a clerk about to join the Confederacy. 

A letter written by Sumner about this appointment reveals 
his fidelity, to his friends as well as to his measures : " I trust 
Cushing absolutely," he wrote, " and believe, if the occasion 
had occurred, he would have vindicated our ideas judicially far 
better than any probable nominee of Grant. I do not write 
in the dark, for I have talked with him on these questions and 
have seen his sympathy with me. You know that I do not 
cherish old differences and animosities. How many have I 
seen advanced to the front who were once bitterly the other 
way! Knowing Cushing as I did, would it not have been 
mean and craven for me to turn against him or to skulk in 
silence? This is not my way with friends. Such is not my 
idea of friendship." 

Morrison E. Waite was afterwards appointed and confirmed. 
Sumner did not vote on the question of his confirmation. When 
it was being considered by the Senate in executive session, he 
spoke at length of the importance of the office and the character 
of man required and of his association with those who had 
filled it and of the great judges he had known. The session 
being secret his remarks were never printed, but they were 
commended by those who heard them. The appointee was 
then comparatively unknown in Washington, as was his opinion 
upon the question in which Sumner felt so much interest. The 
result justified Sumner's apprehension, for Chief Justice Waite 
concurred in the opinion holding the Civil Eights Law uncon- 
stitutional. 

On Fl-iday, March sixth, Sumner spoke in the Senate on the 
bill for the Centennial Exposition to be held in Philadelphia 
in 1876. From the beginning he had taken much interest in 
it. He was not in favor of giving it the form of a World's 
Fair, believing that coming so soon after the Exposition at 
Vienna it would not be a success. But he was in favor of a 
National Exposition showing the progress of this country in the 
arts and sciences. In his debate, on this day, there was a sharp 



'J' 14 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

though friendly encounter between him and the Pennsylvania 
►Senators. He favored a farther consideration of the bill and 
moved a -reference of it to a committee; and he prevailed. 
These were his last remarks in the Senate. 

He was pleased with the vote and just after it was taken he 
said to a fellow Senator: " Thurman, this is another instance 
of the good effects of debate. Had the vote been taken on the 
bill without discussion, it would have passed almost unani- 
mously." Sumner never limited his friendships to those of 
his own party. His friendship with Thurman, though a 
Democrat, approached intimacy and, he said after Sumner's 
death, it was never marred for a moment by any political 
difference, however great and decided. Thurman thought one 
of Sumner's distinguishing traits was his love of discussion. 

" He never," he said, " within my knowledge shrunk from 
it; and he was the determined opponent of all attempts to 
limit debate in the Senate by a previous question or other 
restrictive rule. He spoke often and elaborately himself, and 
he was the best, and perhaps the most courteous, listener among 
us to the speeches of others. He placed a very high estimate 
upon the power and effect of discussion, often in conversation 
citing instances of measures being carried or defeated by a 
thorough debate." 

The Senate adjourned from March sixth, Friday, to Monday 
March ninth. On Sunday evening Sumner dined at Mr. 
Hooper's in company with Senator Anthony of Rhode Island 
and Hon. J. B. Smith, a colored member of the Massachusetts 
Legislature, who had been appointed to bring to Washington 
the resolution, rescinding the Legislative censure of Sumner. 
It was rescinded by the State Senate on February eleventh and 
by the House of Eepresentatives on February thirteenth, al- 
most unanimously. Mr. Smith had brought the resohition, and 
a beautifully engrossed parchment copy of it for Sumner. 
Sumner was in excellent spirits while at Mr. Hooper's. But 
after retiring that night he had an attack of the angina pec- 
toris, which kept him awake four hours and necessitated the 
call of his physician and a return to morphine to ease the pain. 

On Monday, March ninth, the session of the Senate lasted 
only a few minutes and then adjourned out of respect for the 
memory of ex-President Fillmore, who had just died. Sumner 
was not able to be present. On that evening he had another, but 
less severe, attack of his disease, when his physician was again 
sent for and administered remedies. On the next day, Tuesday, 
March tenth, 1874, his colleague Senator Boutwell was to 
formally present in the Senate the rescinding resolution. 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 7I5 

Boutwell had been sick for some days and hence it had not been 
done sooner. It had been presented in the House on March 
seventh by General Butler, in Sumner's absence. But it was 
desired that he should be present when it was presented in the 
Senate. He felt better on the morning of Tuesday, chatted 
pleasantly and discussed, with his guest and former secretary, 
A. B. Johnson, many persons and events " always in a kindly, 
genial, pleasant tone," while he waited nearly an hour for his 
mail, which was late. He went to the Senate against the advice 
of his physician. 

He was in his seat about 12.30 p. m. when Senator Bout- 
well arose soon after the Senate convened and read the resolu- 
tion, formally retracting the only censure that had been passed 
upon him by the State during a service of twenty-three years. 
The eyes of the members sought him as the resolution was 
read, but in his face there was no sign of exultation or tri- 
umph. When asked the evening before if he would speak, 
he answered : " The dear old commonwealth has spoken for me 
and that is enough." But underneath a silent and impassive 
exlarior there was a deep feeling of appreciation of this act of 
the Legislature. How many heart aches and sad misgivings, 
this hasty, passionate and ill-considered resolution cost him, 
no one will ever know. But we do know that it did much to 
hasten the break down of the already shattered health of this 
noble servant of the State. The presentation of the rescinding 
resolution was the last act of the Senate in which he partici- 
pated. 

His fellow Senators, and others present, congratulated him. 
He went to his colleague Boutwell and affectionately putting his 
arm around his neck, inquired after his health and as he arose 
to leave the chamber accompanied him to the door, there 
bidding him " Good-bye ". He met Charles Kingsley, the 
English novelist and divine, who was on a lecturing tour in this 
country and conversed with hirh pleasantly. It was their first 
meeting and the impressions were mutually pleasant. They 
talked of English friends and acquaintances, Gladstone and the 
Argylls. Sumner said he was going to write to the Duchess 
of Argyll the next day. But he never did. Kingsley wrote in- 
stead to tell her the sad particulars of the end. Sumner spoke 
to several of his fellow Senators ; to some, of the Centennial 
Celebration, of the resumption of specie payments, of the re- 
scinding resolution and the kindness he had enjoyed during his 
recent vacation in Massachusetts ; and to others, Mr. Hooper 
among them, of his sickness, of his feeling of weakness and of 
his apprehension of another attack. While he was still speaking 



716 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

to some of them, he experienced pains in his side and remarked 
about them. Mr. Hooper arranged that his carriage would 
come to the Capitol and that he should ride home with him. 

During this session of the Senate and the one of the Friday 
previous when Sumner was last there, he was greatly worried 
over a complimentary dinner to Baez, the San Domingo ad- 
venturer, that was being arranged for in Boston by Dr. S. G. 
Howe and others. To Mr. J. \Y. Chandler, wdio had dis- 
cussed it with him on each occasion, he declared himself firmly 
against it and expressed the wish to have it prevented. 
An effort was being made by Mr. Chandler to gratify him. 
There was an earnest conversation of some length about it, on 
each occasion. Baez was then in New York; and the dinner 
was understood to be in furtherance of the scheme of annexa- 
tion. It was never held. Sumner left the Senate Chamber, at 
4.30 p. M., according to appointment, with Mr. Hooper, in 
his carriage. As he went out, those near noticed him pause and 
cast his eyes around, as if giving a long, parting look upon this 
scene of struggle and suffering and triumph, that had filled so 
large a place, in his life. 

In the evening he entertained Congressman Henry L. Pierce 
and Mr. B. P. Poore of the press, both of Massachusetts, at his 
house for dinner. Before their arrival he wrote some friends 
in Boston, to interest them in preventing the complimentary 
dinner to Baez and he spoke of it to his guests when they 
arrived and seemed worried by it. After dinner, the two friends 
remained in conversation with him for two hours and then 
left, Mr. Pierce being the last to go. About half an hour after 
he left, the servants below heard a noise, in his chamber, as of 
some one falling heavily to the floor; and upon going imme- 
diately up, they found him lying partly upon the lounge and 
in great agony. 

His physician Dr. J. T. Johnson was at once sent for and 
he came promptly with his brother A. B. Johnson, Sumner's 
former secretary. They reached the house about nine p. m. In 
the meantime, he had been aided to his bed ; and when the phys- 
ician arrived ho was lying across it suffering severely. Mor- 
phine was administered hypodermically to ease the pain and 
produce sleep, but it gave no relief and fifteen minutes later the 
application was repeated. This afforded temporary relief and 
at the request of Dr. Johnson he retired to bed and soon went to 
sleep and slept for twenty minutes, when he awoke again with 
another paroxysm, more violent than the other. He exclaimed, 
" Doctor, this thing must kill me yet, and it might as well be 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 717 

now; for life at this price is not worth the having." It was 
now near midnight and the physician, becoming alarmed at the 
violence of the symptoms, thought it prudent to call in others. 
His friends Mr. Hooper and Mr. Pierce as well as James 
Wormley, who lived near, were summoned and Dr. W. P. John- 
ston was also called; and they soon arrived, Mr. Wormley 
bringing with him another colored friend, G. F. Downing. 

After another injection of morphine and a dose of brandy and 
ammonia he seemed easier, and at two o'clock there was so much 
improvement that his friends, except Mr. A. B. Johnson, 
thought it safe to retire to their homes; and he requested Mr. 
Johnson and his physician to go to bed, assuring them that he 
was better. The others complied except Dr. Johnson, who re- 
mained with him all night watching his symptoms. Towards 
morning they became noticeably worse. He was very weak, 
his pulse was fast disappearing and he became unconscious. 
About six o'clock Mr. Hooper, Mr. Pierce, and Mr. Wormley 
returned and it was decided to have a consultation of phy- 
sicians and Surgeon-General Barnes and Dr. Lincoln were 
called and the result was a conviction that the end was near. 

From this time until he died there were only intervals of 
semi-consciousness. Dr. Brown-Sequard was telegraphed for 
and word of his condition sent his sister and other relatives. 
His friends Senator Schurz and Congressmen E. Rockwood 
Hoar and George F. Hoar heard of his condition and came at 
once. Many of his friends and associates in the public service 
called during the day to tender kindly offices and before them 
the chaplain of the Senate in the library, below where he lay, 
read passages of Scripture and offered prayer, as he did also in 
Sumner's room. 

When partially aroused certain things seemed to be upon 
his mind. " I should not regret this if my book were finished," 
he murmured. And again, " My book, my unfinished book ! " 
He could be heard to murmur the words " Tired ", " Weary ". 
To his former secretary, Mr. Johnson, who with the two colored 
friends were changing his position he said : " You must be very 
tired ; but you can soon rest." To Judge E. R. Hoar who was 
chafing his hands, saying he was trying to warm them, he an- 
swered hopelessly, " You never will ". To Mr. Johnson who had 
lifted him up and had his arm under him, he said, " Don't let 
the bill be lost." To which he replied " Certainly not "; when 
Sumner answered : " You don't understand me : I mean the 
Civil Rights Bill;" and then turning to Judge Hoar he said; 
"Judge, the Civil Rights Bill; don't let it be lost— don't let 
it fail, my bill, the Civil Rights Bill ! " About noon Schurz 



718 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

asked him, " Do you know me ? " " Yes ", he answered, striv- 
ing to open his eyes, " but I do not see you ". And again the 
words were murmured ; " 0, so tired ! 0, so weary ! " As the 
end drew very near he said to Judge Hoar, a neighbor of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, "Judge, tell Emerson how much I love and 
revere him ". And the Judge answered, " I will. He said of 
you once, he never knew so white a soul." He was a little later 
told that Mr. Hooper had come to see him. He motioned him 
to a seat and said : " Sit down." These were his last words. 
He soon sank again into unconsciousness, the heart beats grow- 
ing feebler; for six hours there had been no pulse distinguish- 
able at his wrist ; and at ten minutes before three o'clock p. m. 
he passed into another convulsive movement with his heart; 
and the end was over. And Charles Sumner was dead. 
His friend and former secretary Johnson and Dr. Lincoln 
were supporting him at the time, Mr. Downing held his right 
hand, Judge Hoar his left; and as he laid it down he said, 
" Well done, good and faithful servant ! enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord ! " 

" As I stood by the dying bed of him who was my friend 
for thirty years," said Judge Hoar, " and heard the repeated 
exclamation, ' 0, so tired ! 0, so weary ! ' the old hymn of the 
church seemed to be sounding in my ears: 

" ' Yes, peace ! for war is needless; 
Yes calm ! for storm is past ; 
And rest from finished labor, 
And anchorage at last." 

When the Senate met that day and the condition of Sumner 
was known, who the day before had been present participating 
in the proceedings, there was an indisposition to do any busi- 
ness and, on motion of Sherman, an adjournment was taken to 
the next morning. The Senators gathered in groups, receiv- 
ing word of his condition from time to time and discussing 
the impending event. The House continued in session receiv- 
ing and having read bulletins giving information of his condi- 
tion and, when his death was announced, it too adjourned. 
By a coincidence, that did not escape observation among his 
colleagues, the day he was stricken with the fatal attack, which 
ended his life, was the anniversary of the day, when three years 
before he was removed from the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions. 

The next day, in the absence of Senator Boutwell of Massa- 
chusetts, on account of sickness, his death was announced in 
the Senate by Senator Anthony of Rhode Island. 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 719 

" It is an event," he said, " which needs not to be announced, 
for its dark shadow rests gloomily upon this chamber, and not 
only upon the Senate and the Capitol, but upon the whole 
country." 

He moved that a committee of six be appointed to take 
charge of the funeral and that, in consideration of his long 
and distinguished services to his country, his remains be re- 
moved to Massachusetts in charge of the Sergeant at Arms of 
the Senate, attended by a committee of six. The Senate then 
adjourned to attend the funeral services in the Senate Chamber 
at 12.30 p. M. the next day. 

The announcement of his death was made in the House by 
Judge Hoar. He moved that a committee of nine be appointed, 
who with the Members of the House from Massachusetts, 
should accompany the remains to his native State, 

The scene at the residence the next day was unusual. No rel- 
ative of Sumner was there but the house was filled with 
mourners. The Massachusetts delegation with their families 
assembled early and went with the remains to the Capitol. A 
great procession of colored men, headed by Frederick Douglass, 
followed the hearse and after them came the committees of 
Congress and the immediate friends in carriages. The re- 
mains were deposited in the rotunda and here under the dome 
of the Capitol, all the forenoon, a throng of many thousands 
took a last look at the familiar face. Many were turned away, 
however, unable to get near on account of the press of the 
crowd. 

Promptly at 13.30 p. m, the body was removed to the Sen- 
ate Chamber, The throng that had already assembled there, 
the President and his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the Senate 
and House of Representatives, General Sherman and Admiral 
Porter the heads of the Army and Navy, with many of their 
subordinate officers, the legations and their families and the 
public, that crowded the great galleries, all arose at the an- 
nouncement of its coming and remained standing, while it was 
carried to the place reserved, before the Vice-President's desk. 
Here during the service, President Grant and Secretary Fish 
sat at the head, and Senator Schurz at the foot, while the 
eyes of the great audience wandered from him, where ho 
lay, to the one vacant chair now, as was the whole chamber, 
lieavily draped in mourning. The services were brief. The 
Chaplain of the House read 1 Cor. xv, 22-28 and offered a 
prayer. The Chaplain of the Senate then read Psalm xxxix, 
5-13 and Psalm xc and offered further prayer. And Senator 
Carpenter then President jjro tern., committed the remains to 



720 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate and the committees, to 
be borne to Massachusetts. They were accompanied to the 
Eailroad Station by many of those present. 

Of these services Mr. Blaine wrote that they " were marked 
with a manifestation of personal sorrow on the part of multi- 
tudes of people, more profound than had attended the last rites 
of any statesman of the generation — Abraham Lincoln alone 
excepted." There was a wealth of flowers. Among them a 
cross sent from the White House by the daughter of the Presi- 
dent and a magnificent design sent by the little Black Eepublic 
of Haiti; but what would have touched Sumner most, — 
those from the poor colored people, in profusion. 

Both Houses of Congress adjourned until after the burial. 

The special train left Washington at three p. m. 

When the train reached its destination it was met by a multi- 
tude of people. Escorted by a mounted guard of honor from the 
First Battalion, followed by a long procession of carriages and 
people on foot, to the State House, here on a catafalque in the 
rotunda, hung with the torn and tattered flags of the conflict 
over Slavery, he was laid, his life-work done and the trust 
which had iaeen confided to him by his State ended. As the 
shades of Saturday evening were gathering in the great hall, 
Senator Anthony advanced to Governor Washburn and said : 

" May it please your Excellency : We are commanded by the 
Senate to render back to you, your illustrious dead. Nearly a 
quarter of a century ago, you dedicated to the public service a 
man who was even then greatly distinguished. He remained 
in it, quickening its patriotism, informing its counsels, and 
leading in its deliberations, until, having survived in continu- 
ous service all his original associates he has closed his earthly 
career. With reverent hands we bring to you his mortal part, 
that it may be committed to the soil of the renowned com- 
monwealth that gave him birth. Take it; it is yours. The 
part which we do not return to you is not wholly yours to re- 
ceive, nor altogether ours to give. It belongs to the country, 
to mankind, to freedom, to civilization, to humanity. We 
come to you with the emblems of mourning, which faintly 
typify the sorrow that swells the breasts which they cover. So 
much we must concede to the infirmity of human nature. But 
in the view of reason and philosophy is it not rather a matter 
of high exultation that a life so pure in its personal qualities, 
so high in its public aims, so fortunate in its fruition of noble 
effort, has closed safely, without a stain, before age had im- 
paired its intellectual vigor, before time had dimmed the luster 
of its genius ! " 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 731 

'' May it please Your Excellency : Our mission is completed. 
We commit to you the body of Charles Sumner. His undying 
fame the Muse of History has already taken into her keeping." 

The Governor, in reply, addressed the committee briefly. 

In the rotunda, the remains lay in state until Monday after- 
noon, guarded by a company of colored soldiers. During this 
time the assembled city and its visitors passed through the 
hall to view the face that had so long been familiar. During 
Saturday, while the train that bore him, was threading its way 
to his old home, a public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall at 
which short commemorative addresses were made by leading 
citizens, A. H. Kice and William Gaston, both afterwards Gov- 
ernors of Massachusetts, General Banks, Edward E. Hale, 
Richard H. Dana Jr., James B. Smith and others and letters 
were read from Charles Francis Adams and Henry Wilson. 
During Sunday, his life furnished the theme for many of the 
sermons of the country. On Monday, Boston was draped in 
mourning, the bells tolled, the flags in the city and harbor were 
at half mast and business was suspended. Everywhere there 
was evidence of sorrow. At three P. M the remains were re- 
moved from the State House to the King's Chapel, the old stone 
church, with associations of colonial days, where for many 
years he and his family had worshipped. Here the pastor, Eev. 
Henry W. Foote, read appropriate passages of Scripture, prayer 
was offered, Montgomery's hymn, " Servant of God, well done " 
was sung, other music was rendered and the brief service was 
ended. 

The long procession to Mt. Auburn Cemetery moved over 
the bridge to Cambridge, passed the homes of Story and Long- 
fellow and the College and Law School, and, as the sun was just 
disappearing, reached the grave, where in the gathering twilight 
the Lord's Prayer was said, a choir of forty male voices sang 
the inimitable '' Integer Vitae " and " A mighty fortress is our 
God ", the pastor pronounced a benediction ; and all that was 
mortal of Charles Sumner was at rest. 

By the grave stood Longfellow, Whitticr, Emerson and 
Holmes, and his associates in public life, Vice-President Wil- 
son, Speaker Blaine, Schurz, Anthony, Sherman, Hooper, Hoar 
and Pierce. No one of kin was there, but, as the coffin rested, 
two ladies, one of them the daughter of Julia Ward Howe, 
approached and placed upon it a wreath and a cross, the offer- 
ing of the only surviving member of his father's large family, 
his sister Julia. 

The grave is in a secluded spot near the boundary of the 
cemetery farthest from the main entrance. It is on the south- 



723 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 

west slope of the hill which originally was called by the stu- 
dents of Harvard " Mt. Auburn," and which afterwards gave 
its name to the cemetery. From the top of this eminence is 
had a fine view of the surrounding country and of the Charles 
River, of which Longfellow wrote : 

" River that stealeth with such silent pace 
Around the City of the Dead, where lies 
A friend who bore thy name and whom these eyes 
Shall see no more in his accustomed place, 
Linger and hold him in thy soft embrace 
And say good night. " 

The grave is now marked by a granite monument, bearing his 
name, erected by the people. Beside it are the graves of his 
family and near by the visitor sees to-day those of Agassiz 
and Felton, and a little farther off those of Story, Longfellow, 
Holmes, Choate, Hillard and Channing. 

Perhaps no member of either House of Congress was ever 
followed to the grave by such a wealth of eulogy. He was a 
great orator himself and had always been generous in eulogy 
of his dead associates. It was therefore natural that his death 
should make an impression upon men of this stamp, that would 
find its expression before the public. The State of Massachu- 
setts and the City of Boston each held a commemorative serv- 
ice ; at the former George William Curtis and at the latter 
Carl Schurz delivered the oration. The one was published in 
full in Harper's Weekly and the other bv the New York Tri- 
bune. They were both able and generous tributes, and deserve 
to be classed with the best funeral orations in our language. 
A special commemorative service was held by the ISTew York 
Chamber of Commerce and another by the Legislature of Mass- 
achusetts. Longfellow, Whittier and Holmes each commemor- 
ated him in a poem. The press of the whole country recognized 
the loss as a National one and united in generous praise of the 
dead Senator. It was commented on by many of the papers of 
Great Britain and by some in France and a sketch of his life, 
Avith a portrait, was printed in one in Stockholm. Extracts 
from the English estimates were collected by the London cor- 
respondent of the New York Tribune and were republished in 
an article of his own to his home paper. 

But of all the tributes, those of his associates in public 
life were the most discriminating and contain the best estimates 
of his character. They knew him intimately, saw his life and 
his work closely and speaking before the country and in the 
presence of one another, they spoke carefully. They do not 
attempt to conceal that they saw defects in his character. But 



LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 733 

there was a generous acknowledgment of his great work and 
the loss his death was to the Senate and to the country. " Who- 
ever was first in other fields of statesmanship, the pre-em- 
inence of Sumner on the slavery question must always be con- 
ceded." They testified to his official integrity, the purity of his 
private life, his ability, his industry, his deeply affectionate 
nature, his strong religious faith. 

They dwelt upon the gentleness and kindliness? of his disposi- 
tion during these last months, no unkind word for his old 
antagonists, only a longing for peace and harmony, and the 
spirit of charity. And why should it not be so? The long 
day's work was ended, derided, scoffed at and denounced, borne 
with stern patience through the noontide heats, it at last had 
triumphed. There remained no forum where its justice was 
debated and no home so lowly that it could not reach. _ As 
the shadows gathered, he could easily cover up the animosities 
of the past and look forward, with a cheering hope, to the 
future. 



( 



INDEX 



Abbott, Josiah G., 452. 
Adams, Cbas. F. — 

An Anti-Slavery Whig, 184, 5. 9, 

191. 
Retires from contest witti Win- 

throp, 204. 
Friendship for Sumner, 212. 
Discussed for Senator, 223. 
Announces for Sumner, 225. 
Serenaded, 233. 
Voted for Senator, 452. 
Retires from English Mission, 

034. 
At Funeral, 721. 
Adams, John Quincy" — 

A Whig Leader, 99, 115, 116. 
Hears Sumner's Oration. 163-6. 
An Anti-Slavery Leader, 182, 

239. 
His Motto, 212. 
His Funeral, 214. 
Alaska, Purchase of, 575, 582. 
Allen, Chas., 191, 207. 
Allston, Washington, 65, 105, 116, 

165. 
Ames, Adelbert, 628. 
Andrew, John A., 151, 184, 292-3, 

397, 400, 454. 
Annexation of San Domingo, 650- 

673. 
Appleton. Nathan, 113, 206. 
Arsyll. Duchess of. Letter, 612. 
Arlington, Sumner opposes Return of 

to Loe. 649. 
Arnold. Isaac N., 523. 
Aiken, William. 306. 
Aix-les-B,ains, 379. 
Ashley, James M.. 592. 
Ashmun, Professor, 22-4. 
Assault by Brooks, 330-3. 



Baez, President, 650. 

Baker, Senator, Eulogy on, 411- 



Bancroft, George, 115, 138, 209. 

Banks, N. P., 227, 306. 

" Barbarism of Slavery," Speech, 

377-394. 
Bartlett, Sidney, 232. 
Bachelder, Jas., 28,3-4. 
" Battle Flag Bill," 690-700. 
Bell, John, 397. 
Benton. Thos. H., 217, 239. 
Bigelow, John, 234. 
Bingham. John A.. 329, 3.30. 595-7. 
Bingham, Senator. Eulogy on, 420-1. 
Blaine, Jas. G., Letter to Sumner, 

688. 
Blair, F. P.. 344. 
Boutwell, Geo. S., 227, 704, 714, 

715. 
Bowen, Henry C, 544. 
Breekenridge, Senator, 395, 397, 

421-2. 
Brewster, Sir David. 05-6. 
Bright, Jesse D., 312. 431. 
Bright, John, 358, 368, 696. 
Brooks. Preston S. — 
Sketch of, 329. 
Lays in wait for Sumner, 330. 
Assaults him, 330-3. 
Congressional Action on, 334. 
Resignation and Re-election, 336. 
Criminal Punishment of, 336. 
Challenges Wilson. 337. 
Challenges Burlingame, 337. 
Death of. 340. 
Recalled by Blaine, 688. 
Brougham Hall, 64. 
Brougham, Lord. 63, 80, 81, 358-9. 
Brown, John, 308. 
Brown, John W.. 13. SO, 400. 
Brown-Sequard, Dr.. 375, 377-9. 382. 

647, 715. 717. 
Brown, Thos.. 30, 66. 67. 68. 
Bryant. Wm. Cullen, 267. 338, 400. 
Buckingham, Edgar, 141. 
Buchanan, Jas., 339. 
Bnckalew, Senator, 569. 
Bnlwer, Edward G., 53. 

25 



(26 



INDEX 



Biiiiingame, Representative, 337, 

397, 400. 
Burns, Robert, 161. 
Burns, Anthony, 1!83. 
Burritt, Elihu, 170. 
Butler, Benjamin, 596, 715. 
Butler, Fanny Kemble, 135. 
Butler, Senator, 287-8, 296, 315-17, 

320, 322-4, 328, 334-6, 341. 



Carlyle, Thomas, 54, 67, 68. 

" Carol ino. The," 123. 

Cass, Lewis, 41. 80, 81, 191, 193, 

196, 217, 240. 
Caucus Rules, 574-575. 
Censure of Sumner, 701-3. 
Chandler, P. W., 150. , 
Channing, Wm. F., 125. 
Channlng, Wm. E., 117, 118, 119^ 

165. 
Channing, Walter, 188. 
Chase, Salmon P. — 

Chm. Free-Soil Convention, 193 
On Compromise, 217. 
Urges Sumner for Senator, 226. 
Early Anti-Slavery, 239. 
Sumner's visit to, 302. 
Death, 704. 
Chestnut, Senator, 394. 
Chester, visits, 368. 
Chevalier, Michael, 353. 
Child, Linus, 185. 
Chinese Indemnity Fund, 633-4. 
Choate, Rufus, 25, 100, 115, 207, 245, 

349, 384. 
Civil Rights Bill, 675-8, 699. 
Clay, Brutus J., 302-3. 
Clay, Cassius M., 302-3. 
Clarke, J. F., 188, 702, 708. 
" C'arke Propositions," 403. 
Clay. Henry, 99, 130, 216-17, 247. 

303. 
Cleveland, H. R., 31, 206. 
Cobb, Howell, 217. 
Cole, Senator, 577. 
Collamer, Senator, 312, 553. 
Cogswell, J. G., 96, 109. 
" Compensated Emancipation," 434-7, 

456-7. 
Compromise of 1850, 216. 
Cobden, Richard, 210. 
Conversation, Daniel Webster on 

632. 
Corwin, Thos., 99, 190-4, 217. 



Cornwall, Barry, 55. 
Cottenham, Lord Charles, 52. 
Cotton Crop during war, 458. 
Cowan, Senator, 539, 551. 
Cowdin, Eliot C, 351, 709, 711. 
•' Craigie House," 111-12. 
Crawford, Thos., 85, 87, 91, 104, 

105-6, 351. 
" Crittenden Propositions," 402-5. 
Crittenden, Senator, 332. 
" Creole, The," 124. 
Crouzet, Dr., 379-381. 
Curtis, Benj. R., 595, 598. 
Cushing, Caleb, 228, 426, 452, 712- 

13. 
Cushman, H. W., 227. 
Cushing, L. S., 27, 28, 135. 
Cutler, B. C, 109. 
Custom House Oaths, 386. 



Dana, R. H., Jr., 233, 255. 

Davis, Jefferson, 395. 

Davis, Henry Winter, 503, 505. 

Davis, John. 265. 

De Grey, Earl, 644. 

Denman, Chief Justice, 47, 48, 50. 

De Tocqueville, Alexis, 173, 352. 

Dexter, Franklin, 101, 115. 

Divorce, 584-5. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 90. 

Dix, John A., 408. 

Douglas, Stephen A. — 

On Compromise, 217. 

Kansas-Nebraska Debate, 276, 
326. 

Sketch of, 313. 

Sumner answers, 317, 321, 324. 

Attacks Sumner, 315, 326. 

Sumner answers, 316, 327-8. 

Against Democrats on Kansas, 
371. 

Nominated for President, 397. 

Dedication of his Monument, 
562. 
Drayton and Sayres, 250. 
Dunlap, Adam, 28-9. 
Dunrobin Castle, 363. 
Dwight, Louis, 172, 176. 



E 



Eads, Jas. B., 459. 
Edmundson, Representative, 330-2, 
341. ' 



INDEX 



121 



Education, Sumner on, 571. 
Eldredge, J. S., 189. 
Eliot. S. A., 17.;, 176. 
Elsworth, Oliver, li59. 
Emancipation, The Issue, 411-17, 

419, 423-4, 482-7. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 47, 54, 97, 

400, 718. 721. 
Estimate of Sumner, 338. 
Enlistment of Colored Soldiers, 453. 
Engravings. Study of, 372-3. 
English Bar. 48, 61. 
English Interference in War, 458- 
• 464. 
Eulogy on Lincoln, 520-2. 

on Rantoul, 248-9. 

on Bingham. 420-1. 

on Baker, 421-2. 

on Collamer, 553. 

on Foot, 553. 

on Stevens, 617. 

on Fessenden, 617. 

on Greeley. 698. 

on Davis, 698. 
Eulogies on Sumner, 722-3. 
Evarts, Wra. M., .338. .591, 59.5, .598. 
Europ.'an Trips, 32-96, 349-369, 

374-383. 694-7. 
Everett, Edward, 99, 163, 166, 279, 

349. 405. 
Exmouth. Lord. 161. 
Fay, Theodore S., 92, 93. 



Felton. C. C. 31, 97, 111, 167. 

Ferguson, Sir Adam, 66. 

Fessenden. Senator, 433, 546, 550. 
582, 617. 

Field. David D.. 193. 467. 

Fillmore. President, pardons Dray- 
ton and Say res. 250-1. 

Fish, Hamilton, 241, 61.3-615. 658. 
667. 719. 

Fitzwilliam. Lord, 53, 73, 210. 

Fletcher. Richard. 33. 

Foelix, .1. J. G.. 41. 

Foot, Senator. 5.53. 

" Foreign Relations, Our," Speech, 
467-9. 

Fox, Chas. James, 610, 611. 

" Franco-Prussian War," Lecture on 
648-9. 

Pree-Soilers, Growth of, 285. 

Freedmen's Bureau, 501-2. 



French, Interference in War, 461- 

462. 
Fremont', John C, 3.39, 352. 
French Spoliatious. 489. 
French Arms' Investigation. 678. 
Frost, B., 13. 
Fugitive Slave Law, 262-5, 286, 296- 

7. 24.5-8. 475-8. 
Funeral of Sumner. 718-721. 
Furness, J. T., 344. 347. 691. 
Furness, W. H., 344, 347. 



" Gag Rule," 285. 

Garner, Margaret. 475. 

Garrison. Wm. Lloyd, 126-7. 158, 

254. 
Gaston. Judge. 30. 500. 
Gerando. Baron de. 41, 42. 
Gerry, Elbridge. 359. 
Gidd'ngs, .Joshua R., 124. 192, 193. 

213. 224, 250. 314. 
Gladstone, Wm. E., 358, 359, 368. 
Gigli. Signor. 87. 
Goethe. Johann W.. 161. 
Gordon, Capt. J. R., 380. 
Gould. Ben.iamin, 8. 
Grant. T^ S.— 

Appointed Secretary of War, 

594. 
Report on Condition in South, 

539. 
Elected President, 605-611. 
Approvps Sumner's Position on 
Alahamn Claims against Eng- 
land, 642. 
Seeks Annexation of San Do- 
mingo, 0.54. etc. 
Sumner's Speech against. 68.3-6. 
Gray, F. C. 174. 
Grav, John C. 190. 
Greeley, Horace, 451. 688. 691. 
Greene, Geo. W.. 84. 89. 210. 
Greenough. Horatio. 87. 104. 
Groesbeck Wm. S.. 595. 598. 
Greenleaf Professor, 24-5. 28, 33, 55, 

100. 
Guizot, F. P. G., 42, 353. 
Gwin, Senator, 577. 



H 



Hale. John C, 2.",9. 266, 302. 
TTallam. Henry, 55. 361. 
Harrison. Wm. H., 98. 



r28 



INDEX 



Harvard College, 145-7. 

Harvey, Jacob, 126. 

Hajden, Wm., 189. 

Heidelberg, visit to, 93. 

Henry, Patrick. 324. 

Hillard, Geo. S., 27, 28, 31, 53, 54 

5G, 99, 111, 158, 206, 219, 707. 
Hoar, Geo. F., 717. 
Hoar, E. Rockwood 192, 717, 718. 
Hoar, Samuel, 191. 
Holkham House, visit to, 71. 
Hopkins, Erasmus, 451. 
Hopkinson. Thos., 13. 18. 
Home, Removal from Old. 588-9. 
Home, Purclia.se of New, 589. 
Holt, Jo.seph. 408. 
Howe, Samuel, G. — 

Sumner's early Friendship for. 

103. 109. 110. 
Interest with, in Popular Educa- 
tion, 130. 
In Prison Discipline. 139. 171. 
Candidate for Congress, 184. 
Result. 187. 
Friendship, 209. 
Goes to Canada. 384. 
For Minister to Greece. 616. 
In San Domingo Controversy. 
694, 716. , 
Howe, Julia Ward, 109, 110, 702, 

163. 
Hunt. Leigh. 53. 
Humboldt, Alexander von, 92. 
Hutchens. Wells A., 487. 
Hyatt, Thaddeus, 385. 



Impeachment of Johnson. 592- 

600-4. 
Ingham, Robert, 61. 104, 210, 36 
Irving, Washington, 114. 



Kansas-Nebraska Trouble, 276-2S."'. 

307. 
Keitf. Representative, 3.30-3, 341. 
Kemble, Fanny. 135. 
Kent. James. 25. 138. 
Kent, Wm.. 163, 179, 211. 
Kenyon, John, 210. 
King. Preston, 193. 
Know-Nothing Party. 294, 305. 
Kossuth, Louis, 242. 



Lafayette, Lecture on, 400. 

Lake Champlain, Excursion to, 13. 

Lane, Senator, 431-2. 

Lamar, Representative, 395. 

Law Reporter, Contributes to, 13a 

Lawrence, Abbott, 207. 

Leader, Wm. J., 333. 

Leavitt, Joshua, 226. 

Leverett. L. P., 8. 

Liberal Republican Movement. 680. 

Lieber, Francis, 25, 30-1, 56, 103. 

Lincoln, Abraham — 

Nomination for President, 397. 

Election of, 399. 

Sumner urges Emancipation on, 

41.3-14. 
Favors Compensated Emancipa- 
tion. 4.34-7. 
Proclamation of Emancipation 

issued. 448-9. 
On English and French Atti- 
tude. 459-4G0. 
Sumner's Intimacy with. 473. 
On Southern I'nion Men. 494. 
His Trip to City Point, 516-17. 
Assassination of, 518. 
Sumner's, Eulogy on, 520-2. 
Lincoln. Levi, 9. 
Lindsley, Dr. Harvey, 343. 
Lockhart, J. G.. 53. 
London. In 46, 72. 95. 357, 361, 383. 

695-6. 
Longfellow Ilenr.v W. — 

Sumner's Early Friendship for, 

31. 104. 111. 112-4. 
Fnbroken by Politics. 206-8. 
Spends night after Election to 

Senate with him. 234. 
Regrets at Separation. 238-9. 
Later Friendship, 702, 706, 721, 
722. 
Lyman, Joseph, 233. 



Macaulay, Thos. B.. 54, 358. 
Makenzie. Alexr. Slidell, 128-130. 
Mann. Horace. 130, 250, 302. 
Marriage of Sumner. 557-8. 
McDowell. Jas. F., 487. 
McLean. Judge, 194. 
Martineau, Harriet, 361. 
Mason, .Alice, 



INDEX 



729 



Mason, Jas. M., 425. 

Mason, Jeremiah, il5. 

Mason, Senator, 324, 326-8, 335-6. 

Metcalf, Tberon, 28. 

Metternich, Prince, 91. 

Mexican War, Opposed to, 148-9, 

181, 188. 
Mittermaier, Professor, 35, 94, 104, 

105, 210. 
" Monograph from an Old Note 

Book," 470. 
Montpellier, Residence at. 379-381. 
Morpeth. Lord. 09, 70, 104, 105, 114. 

125, 210, 366-7. 
Morris, Goiivernenr. 259. 
Morgan. Representative, 332. 
Motley. John Lothrop, 613, 615, 643, 

696. 
Morris, Robert. 177. 
Murat, Madame, 42. 



N 



Norton. Mrs. Caroline. 76, 96. 358. 

Napoleon. 160. 

Nashy. Petroleum V.. 516. 677. 

National Banks, Taxation of. 489. 

Nelson, Homer A., 487. 

Nelson. T. A. R.. 595. 

New Bedford Lyceum, 158. 

New England Society of N. Y. Toast, 

709-711. 
New England Emigrant Aid Co., 318- 

320. 
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 644. 



Oregon Boundary Dispute, 148. 
Owen, Robert Dale, 502. 



Palfrey. John G., 150, 157, 189, 204. 

224. 234. 
Paris. Visits to, 37-45, 350-355. 

375-6, 695-6. 
I'arkes. Joseph, 210. 
Parker. Theodore. 188, 384. 
Parsons, Theo., 28. 
Penitentiary at Mettray, 356. 
Penn, William. 143. 
Perry. Dr. Marshal S., 343. 347. 
Phillips, S. C. 185, 223. 



Phillips, Wendell — 

At Latin School, 8. 

Opposes Texas Annexation, 157. 

As a Lecturer, 188. 

Approves Sumner's Speech, 291, 

451. 
Befriends Sumner, 705. 
Phillips, Willard, 28. 
Pickering, John, 3, 162, 163. 
Pierce, Edward L., 502, 708. 
Pierce, Franklin, 309. 
Polk, James K., 130. 
Poor, Rear-Admiral, 652, 653. 
Poore, Ben. Perley, 654. 
Postage, Advocates Cheaper, 631-3. 
Powers, Hiram. 87. 
Prison Discipline, Interest in, 139, 

etc. 
Prescott, Wm. H. — 

Commencement of Friendship, 

56. 
Dines with. 97, 105. 
Their Intimacy, 113-115, 138, 

211, 384. 
Dis.sents from Peace Theory, 
151. 
Proclamation of Emancipation, 448- 

9. 
" Prophetic Voices," Article, 585. 
Purchase of New Home, 589. 
Putnam, Samuel, 162. 



Quincy, President. 33, 103, 163. 



Rand, Benjamin, 24. 

Ranke. Leopold, 92. 

nantoul. Robert, Jr., 227, 248. 

" Rebellion, its Origin." etc.. Lecture, 

447-9. 
Reception at Boston, 347-8. 
Reception proposed at Paris, 354. 
Reconstruction. — 

State rebellion. State suicide, 

432. 
In West Virginia, 492. 
Generally, 492-7, 502-514, 566- 
570. 
Reeder, A. M., 309. 
Republican Party, Organization of, 

292, 396, 399. 
Republic without Religion, Doubtful, 
696. 



780 



INDEX 



Kesumption of Specie . Payments, 

K( moval from Old Home, 588-9. 

Revels, Senator, 628. 

" Rights of Sovereignty," etc.. Speech, 

441. 
Rcckwell, " Julius, 285-6. 
Rogers, Samuel, 53. 
Rome, visits to. 82-6, 381. 
Rose, Sir John, 643. 
Roiien, visit, 350. 
Russell, ETarl, 461, 465, 469. 
Roberts, Sarah C, 177. 

S 
Sanborn, F. B., 385-6. 
San Domingo, Opposes Annexation. 

650. 
Savigny, F. K.. 92. 155. 
Schurz, Carl, 539. 679, 722. 
Scott, Archdeacon, 62. 
Scott. Sir Walter. 53, 64, 66. 69. 
Sedgwick, Theodore, 109. 
Sogar. Joseph. 508. 
Seward, Wm. H. — 

On Compromise, 217. 

Early Anti-Slavery. 239. 

Does not Vote, 265. 

Hostility of England, 460. 

Purchase of Alaska. 572, 577. 

Contemplated Purchase of St. 
Thomas, 582. 
Seymour, Lady. 76. 96. 
Seymour. Horr.tio. 408. 
Sharp. Granville. 294. 
Shannon. Governor, 210-212. 
Shaw, Col. Robert G., 454. 
Sherman, John, 311. 476-7, 9, 488, 

567-9. 626, 664. 6.88, 721. 
Sixth Mass. Regiment, 411. 
Slavery. Character of. 390-4. 
Slidell. John, 128-130, 312, 332, 425. 

470. 
Smith, Benj. and Franklin, 515. 
Smith. Sydney, 60. 67. 
" Somers Meeting," 128. 
South Carolina, 323-4. 
Sparks, Jared, 115. 
Spencer, John C, 128. 
Spencer, Philip, 128. 
.Stanherry, Henry, 595, 597. 
Stanton. Edwin M. — 

Appointment to Cabinet, 408. 

Refuses to Resign, 593. 

Removal, 594. 

Commission, 599. 



Stanton, Henry B., 158. 
Stephens, Alesanuer H., 494. 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 595, 597, 617. 
Stewart. Alexander T.. 613-14. 
Stockton. John P.. 549. 550. 
Stearns. J. F.. 13, 20. 
Story, Joseph — 

Father's Friend, 3. 

Early Friendship. 22, 23, 24, 25, 
,30, 35. 47. 100. 

Gives Employment. 29, 102. 132. 

Letters to. 40. 43. 49. 55, 61. 

Secures Publisher for. 56. 

Friction Match Case, 100. 

Letter on Municipal Oration, 

Death. 153. 

Sumner's Tribute, 154. 

Habits, 160. 162. 
Story, Wm. W.. 100, 115. 697. 
Suffrage. 499. 546-8. 567-570. 
Supreme Court. Recollection of, 497. 
Sumner, Albert. 1. 108, 135. 
Sumner. Alice M.. 557-8, 584-5. 
Sumner. Charles — 

Birth. 1. 

Father, 12-15, 82. 

Mother. 5-6, 555-7. 

Family. 1-6. 

Youth, 7-10. 

In Latin School, 8. 

In Harvard College, 11-17. 

Prizes, 15, 19, 20, 22. 

Studies Law, 20-25. 

Excursion to Lake Champlain, 
13-14. 

Law Librarian, 21. 

Visits Washington. 25. 

Little attracted to Women. 26. 

Ilillard & Sumner, Partners, 27. 

Edits "Jurist." 27-8. 138. 

Edits " Admiralty Practice." 28. 

Teaches in Law School, 29, 132, 
157. 

Montreal. 30. 

Enrone, 32. 

Studies French. 38. 

French Trial, 43-5. 

Paris, 37-45. 80. 

London. 46-57. 72-8, 95. 

On Circuit. 57-72. 

Oxford. 73. 

Cambridge. 73. 

Fox Hunt. 73-6. 

Parliament, 77-8. 



iner, Edwin •^>tlier, 82. 

iner, George''- 

)S, 343, 4V-'S, ' M-% 

ner, Henri's Reports," 99. 

ner. Horf^^ife, 119-121. 

ner, Inc-s Mutiny, 128-130. 

ner. Jar/" Vesey Jr.", 132. 

ner, Jo'.css, 132-5. 'I 

aer, Ji'ion Match Case, 100, ^137 

1. i>n Discipline, 130. 

ler, \sue Grandeur of Nations,' 

ler, .440-153. 

'er, Ppearance, 142. 

;ibute to .Tudce Story, 154. 
y/pposes Annexation of Texas. 

Opposes Slavery. 158. 
P r FTrnployment of Time," 159- 
sl l*'l- 

ej" White Slavery," 159-161. 
(Tribute to .Tohn Picljering, 162. 
Phi Beta Kappa Oration, 163-7. 
As an Orator, 167-8. 
Universal Peace, 140-153, 169- 

170. 
Prison Discipline, 171, etc. 
Equal School Privileges, 177-8. 
Law Practice, 179. 
Lyceum Lecturer, 179. 
Mexican War, 181. 
Dolefrate to Whig Conventions, 

184, 189. 
Favors new Party, 190-3. 
Attends Free-Soil Convention, 

193. 
Ratification Meeting, 194-5. 
Free-Soil Campaign, 195-6. 
Nominated for Congress, 196- 

202. 
Loss of Friends, 203-212. 
New Friends, 212-14. 
" Five of Clubs," 205. 
Taste for Music, 209. 
European Correspondence, 210. 
Edits his Speeches, 214. 
" Our Immediate Anti-Slavery 

Duties," 221. 
Attacks Fugitive Slave Lavf, 

221-3. 
Candidate for Senator, 223-232. 
Elected, 232. 
First News, 233. 
Goes to Longfellow's, 234-5. 
Accepts, 236. 



Regrets at Leaving Boston, 

237-9. 
Benton's Prediction, 239. 
Reception in Washington, 241-2. 
Speaks on Reception of Kossuth, 

242-5. 
Iowa Land Bill, 246. 
Eulogy on Rantoul, 248-9. 
Pardon for Drayton & Savers, 

250-1. 
Seeks to Speak on Slavery, 

052-7. 
Spof^h " Freedom, National," 

257. 
Against Fugitive Slave Law, 

262-5, 2J^'>. 475-6. 
His Egotism, 1 267. 
Free-Soil Convention. 268. 
Massachusetts Constitutional 

Convention. 270-7>._j , 
Repeal of Missouri (';;mpromise, 

276-8. 
Midnight Speech, 281-3. 
Threats of Violence, 283-4. 
Abuse of, 287-8. 315-16, ."^26. 
Talks back. 289-290, 31G. 
Speaks to Republican Coaven- 

tion, 292-3, 305. 
Literary Recreation, 394-5.' 
" Anti-Slavery Entejpjrj^e,;' ,^99- 

302. ivi ' 

Visits West and Soutb. ,302-5. 
" Crime against KansasT'''' 316- 

328. 
Assaulted by Brooks, 330-3. 
Injuries, 333, 342. 
Congressional Action, 334-5. 
Resignation and Re-election of 

Brooks, 336. 
College Degrees, 345. 
Reception af Boston, 347-8. 
Second Election, 348-9. 
Visits De Tocquevillo, .360-1. 
Harriet Martineau. 361. 
Dunrobin Castle. 363. 
Teddesley Hall, 367. 
Stafford, 367. 
Hawarden, 368. 
Study of Engravings, 372. 
Submits to Moxa, 375. 
Rome and Turin, 381. 
On Foreign Relations Commit- 
tee, 386, 409. 
" Barbarism of Slavery," 387- 

394, 399. 
First Lincoln Campaign. .398. 



"^32 



INDEX 



As an Orator, 399. 
Lecture on Lafayette, 400. 
Firmness at opening of War, 

404-9. 
Threatened by Baltimore Mob, 

410. 
Slavery, the issue in War, 411-5. 
" Rebellion, its Origin," etc., 

417-19. ., , 

"Trent Affair," 425-9. .'.u 
Mason and Slidell, ,425«aji3 
Leader in Senate,' 430, 552, 569. 
Reconstruction, 432-3, 4537-0. 
Emancipation, 411-5. 434, 4r!0- 
441, 442-3, 445-451, 482-7, 
504. .. 
Compensated ITinancipation, 434- 

Y, 456. ■■•■' 
Ambassadors for Haiti and Li- 
beria,- "^4 37-8. 
Slavp ■'Trade, 438-9, 474. 
To /ree Slaves of Rebels, 439. 
L5sal Tender Notes, 443. 
i'hird Election, 446-7, 452. 
Enlistment of Colored Troops 

453. 
Shaw Memorial, 454. 
Our Foreign Relations, 464-7. 
Intimacy with Lincoln, 473, 514. 
Slavery and Freedom Committee, 

474. 
Persistency, 478. 
Civil Service Bill, 479-480. 
Colored Witnesses, 481. 
Equal Pay for Colored Troops, 

488. 
French Spoliations, 489. 
Oppo.ses Tax on Banks, 489. 
Supreme Court, 497, 499. 
Suffrage, 499, 504, 610-1, 567-8, 

625. 
Freedmen's Bureau, 501, etc. 
Discharge of Smith Bros., 515. 
At Richmond, 516-7. 
Assassination of Lincoln, 518-19. 
Eulogy on Lincoln, 520-2. 
Relations with Johnson, 524. 
559, 534-5, 540-1, 54.5-0, 
600-3. 
" Equal Rights for All," 542. 
Senator Stockton, 550. 
Viva Voce Ballot for Senators, 

550. 
Death of Mother, 555. 
Marriage, 557-8. 



" One Man Powtr » 

gress," 559; ; 
On Education, olV'i 
K'.ies of Cs^r,;Xm^ 



" Sumi, 
Social 
Somer 
Edits 



Purcbase of 

Divorj-g^ J 5g4 _'"r^l617. 
" I\>ophetic 
•' The Nation 
His Fortune, 
iTRfHabits. 590-1. 
' Impeachment, 600-3. 

Opposes Repudiation, 60;. 25, 
For Grant, 608-610, 646. 
Fourth Election, 612. 32. 
Motley and Fish, 613-16. 81. 
Eulogies on Stevens auu 

senden, 617. 
Edition of Works, 619. f 
" Question of Caste," 621. 
" Equal Rights," 622-3, 61 
Opposes Southern Inde 1 
623-4. ! 

Resumption, 607, 630. 
Opposes Income Tax, 630. 
Opposes Tariff on Books, 63 
Cheaper Postage, 631-3. ^ 

Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, 6 , 

640. 
Opposes Annexation of Sa 

mingo, 656-664, 672. 
Removal from his Comn 

663-670. I 

Medal from Haiti, 674. I 

Speech against Grant, 6S3-. j 
Advises Colored Voters to I 

port Greeley, 688. j 

Letter of Blaine, 688. , 

His Answer, 688-9. 
Speech for Greeley, 690. 1 

His AVill, 690-1. ' 

Nominated for Governor and de- 
clines, 694. \ 
London and Paris, 695. j 
Visits John Bright, 696. 
Battle Flag Bill, 699-700. 
Censured, 701-3. 
Last Summer, 705-8. 
Toast before Now England Soci- 
ety, N. \., 709-711. 
Last Days in Senate, 711-715. 
Last Sickness and Death, 716- 

718. 
Funeral, 718-721. 
Eulogies, 722-3. 
Sumner, Charles P., 12-15, 82. 



INDEX 



733 



Sumner, Edwin ■ L 10. 

Sumner, George^- 106, 131, 204-5, 

-68, 343, 4T'l- 
Sumner, Ilenr 1- 
Sumner, Horr'. L 120. 
Sumner, incase, 1. 
Sumner, Jar. 1- 
Sumner, Jo! 2, 120. 
Sumner, Ji^a, 1. 108, 109, 112, 135, 

721. 
Sumner, '.atilda, 1, 24. 
Sumner, vlary, 1. 108, 109, 135-7. 
Sumner, Relief Jacobs, 5-6, 555-7. 



Talfourd, Thos. N., 67, 68, 69. 
Tanoy, Chief Justice. 497-9. 
?>ylor, Zachariah, 191, 196. 
red desley Hall, 367. 
Tenure of Office Law, 563-6. 
Tfxas, Annexation of, 127, 130, 180. 
" The Three Graces," 109. 
^I'hrcats of Violence, 283-4. 395. 
"The Nation," Lecture, 586-8. 
Thomas, Lorenzo, 594. 
Thiers. L. A., 42. 
Tichnor, Professor Geo.. 16, 41, 115, 

204, 208. 
Thibaut, Professor, 94, 155. 
Tilden Samuel J., 193. 
Tindal, Chief Justice, 51, 59. 
Toombs, Senator, 332. 
Toucey, Bill, 296-7. 
Tower, C, 13, 18. 
"Trent Affair." 425. 
Trumbull, Senator, 314, 679. 
Tyler, John, 207. 



Van Buren, Martin, 98. 193-4, 196. 
Vallandigham. C. T., 408. 
Vattemare. Alexr., 353. 
Voorhees, Daniel W., 487. 
Von Humboldt, Alexr., 160. 

W 

Wade, Senator, 596. 
Walker, Amasa, 170. 
Ward, Julia R., 109. 
Ward, Julia (Howe), 109, 110, 163, 

702. 
Ward, Samuel, 109, 134. 
Washburn, Elihu B., 614. 
Washington, George, 143. 



Washington, Treaty of, 644-5. 
Wayland, Francis, 172, 174. 
Webster, Daniel — 

Hears his Eulogy on Adams and 

.Jefferson, 19. 
In " Harrison Campaign," 99. 
Friendly Help, 100. 
Estimate of Hedging, 116, 125, 

189. 191. 
Marvelous Presence, 185. 
His Estimate of Van Buren as a 

Free-Soiler, 193-4. 
Seventh of March Speech, 216- 
220. 
Webster, Fletcher, 185. 
Webb, Seth, Jr., 224. 
Wentworth House, 70, 72. 
Wharncliffe, Earl, 70, 210. 
Whewell, Professor, 210. 
Whitticr, John G. — 

Urges Sumner for Senator, 

224-5. 
Congratulates him, 235, 186, 

275. 291. 
Campaigns for him, 451. 
Seeks Repeal of Censure, 702. 
Commemorates him, 721-2. 
Wilde. Thos., 59. 
Willis. N. P., 96. 
Windsor Castle, Visits, 72. 
Williams, J. M.. 188. 
Wilson, Vice-President — 

Bolt's Nomination of Taylor, 

191, 207. 
Friendship, 213. 
In Election of Sumner to Senate, 

227, 233, 235. 
Nominated for Governor, 293. 
Elected to Senate. 
Elected Vice-I'resident. 
Friendship unbroken, 706-7, 
721. 
Williamson, Passmore, 304. 
Wilson, James F., 592. 
Winthrop, Robert C, 8, 150, 167, 
181, 188, 190, 203, 216, 220, 227, 
232, 349. 
Witherell, Sir Charles, 49. 
Witnesses, Colored, 481. 
Vrright, E., 188. 

Wordsworth, William (poet), 65, 
116. 



Young Men's Republican Union, 467. 



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627 



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